Flora of Victoria

Plant to 20 cm high, spreading to erect, with simple and stellate hairs; branches often inter-twined. Leaves obovate with tapering bases, with few blunt teeth or entire. Inflorescence dense, elongating from a corymb. Sepals c. 1 mm long, often hooded; petals about equal to sepals, notched or trilobed, white. Fruit wedge-shaped to obcordate, 3–5 mm long, c. 2 mm wide, apex broadly notched; valves winged in distal third; pedicels c. 2(–4) mm long. Flowers spring.

Brid, Glep, OtP, WaP. Also southern WA, SA. Rare, primarily near-coastal sites west of Cape Otway, usually associated with saltmarsh vegetation.

Microlepidium pilosulum differs from the South Australian M. alatum in being hairy, having petals, and with fruit winged only in the distal third. Microlepidium pilosulum has been at times included in the genus Capsella, but C. bursa-pastoris has pinnately lobed basal leaves and pedicels longer than the relatively broad (4 mm or more wide) fruits.

Source: Entwisle, T.J. (1996). Brassicaceae. In: Walsh, N.G.; Entwisle, T.J. (eds), Flora of Victoria Vol. 3, Dicotyledons Winteraceae to Myrtaceae. Inkata Press, Melbourne.

Updated by: Val Stajsic, 2019-04-08