Perennial herbs or shrubs, pubescent or canescent with forked hairs, with entire leaves, and small white flowers in terminal racemes. Petals obovate, entire. Filaments slender, not toothed, but with two small glands at the base. Silicle compressed, oval or orbicular. Seeds 1 in each cell. Cotyledons accumbent. [Name in honor of Charles Konig, a curator of the British Museum.]

About 4 species, natives of the Mediterranean region, the following typical.

1. Koniga Maritima (L.) R. Br. Sweet Alyssum. Seaside Koniga. Madwort. Snow-Drift

Fig. 2011

Clypeola maritima L. Sp. Pl. 652. 1753. Alyssum maritimum Lam. Encycl. 1: 98. 1783. Koniga maritima R. Br. in Denh. & Clapp, Narr. Exp. Afric. 214. 1826.

Procumbent or ascending, freely branching, 4'-12' high, minutely pubescent with appressed hairs Stem-leaves nearly sessile, lanceolate or linear, 1/2'-2' long, 1"-2 1/2" wide; basal leaves oblanceolate, narrowed into a petiole, flowers white, fragrant, about 2" broad; pedicels ascending, .3"-4" long in fruit; pods glabrous, pointed, oval or nearly orbicular, 1"-1 1/2" long; calyx deciduous; stamens not appendaged.

In waste places, occasional. Vermont to Pennsylvania and on the Pacific Coast. Bermuda. Cuba. Escaped from gardens. Adventive from Europe. Sweet allison. Summer.