Crambe is a genus of annual and perennialflowering plants in the family Brassicaceae, native to a variety of habitats in Europe, Turkey, southwest and central Asia and eastern Africa. They carry dense racemes of tiny white or yellow flowers on (mostly leafless) stems above the basal leaves.[1]Crambe hispanica subsp. abyssinica, formerly known as Crambe abyssinica, is grown for the oil from the seeds that has characteristics similar to whale oil.
The word "crambe" derives, via the Latin crambe, from the Greek κράμβη, a kind of cabbage.[2]
^RHS A-Z encyclopedia of garden plants. United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley. 2008. p. 1136. ISBN978-1405332965.
^Shorter Oxford English dictionary, 6th ed. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. 2007. p. 3804. ISBN978-0199206872.
^Skuhrovec, J. & Volovnik, S. (2015) Biology and morphology of immature stages of Lixus canescens (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Lixinae). Zootaxa, 4033(3): 350-362.
^"Crambe L."Plants of the World Online. Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 2017. Retrieved 9 November 2020.