Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Brassicales > Brassicaceae > Descurainia > Descurainia sophia

Descurainia sophia (flixweed)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Descurainia sophia is a member of the mustard family. Common names include flixweed, herb-Sophia and tansy mustard. It reproduces by seeds. Its stem is erect, branched, and 4 to 30 inches high. It was once given to patients suffering from dysentery and called by ancient herbalists Sophia Chirurgorum, "The Wisdom of Surgeons," on account of its healing properties. It is the type species of the genus Descurainia and of the rejected genus Sophia Adans. In German, it is called the Sophienkraut and associated with Saint Sophia of Rome, who was invoked against late frosts.
View Wikipedia Record: Descurainia sophia

Attributes

Edible [1]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [1]  Hermaphrodite
Lifespan [1]  Annual/Biennial
Pollinators [1]  Bats
Structure [3]  Herb
Usage [1]  A semi-drying oil is obtained from the seed; Yields are not given; The leaves have been stored with corn to prevent it from going bad;
Height [1]  35 inches (0.9 m)
Light Preference [2]  Mostly Sunny
Soil Acidity [2]  Neutral
Soil Fertility [2]  Intermediate
Soil Moisture [2]  Mostly Dry
View Plants For A Future Record : Descurainia sophia

Protected Areas

Predators

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Erysiphe cruciferarum[6]

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 2ECOFACT 2a Technical Annex - Ellenberg’s indicator values for British Plants, M O Hill, J O Mountford, D B Roy & R G H Bunce (1999)
♦ 3Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935
♦ 4Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 5Food Habits of Rodents Inhabiting Arid and Semi-arid Ecosystems of Central New Mexico, ANDREW G. HOPE AND ROBERT R. PARMENTER, Special Publication of the Museum of Southwestern Biology, NUMBER 9, pp. 1–75 (2007)
♦ 6Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0