Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz, Gold-of-pleasure
Account Summary
Introduction, archaeophyte, a casual weed, now extinct. Native range uncertain, probably European boreo-temperate, but widely naturalised.
14 July 1953; Moon, J.McK.; waste ground in Enniskillen town.
Growth form, reproduction and preferred habitats
Previously, this overwintering annual or biennial was a regular, accidentally introduced seed contaminant and arable weed of flax, corn and lucerne. In parts of Britain, this small-flowered yellow crucifer with yellowish, inverted pear-shaped fruits was also a wool-shoddy alien.
The quite tall plant flowers in midsummer and is either pollinated by bees or self-pollinates (Garrard & Streeter 1983). The 12-20 brown seeds produced per pod (around 900 to 4500 per plant) are short-term persistent, surviving in the soil for about a year or so (Salisbury 1964, pp. 121-2; Thompson et al. 1997).
Until the advent of efficient scientific seed cleaning in the 1940s, it was a frequent and widespread persistent weed of arable cultivation throughout B & I. At the same time, it was always rather local and generally casual in its appearance (Garrard & Streeter 1983; Blamey & Grey-Wilson 1989; Rich 1991; Clement & Foster 1994).
As an oil-seed and fibre producing plant, C. sativa is known to have been either an important cultivated crop in its own right and/or it was tolerated along with another oil-seed crucifer species, Eruca vesicaria (Garden Rocket) as a common contaminant of Linum usitatissimum (Flax) sown either for linseed oil or for its fibre. These three species grow together in the Near East, being harvested and processed far back into prehistory when the distinction between 'crop' and 'weeds' was almost or entirely irrelevant (Loudon 1829; Jones 1988; Rich 1991).
N Ireland was a major flax growing area in the 19th and early 20th century, the fibre being used in the justly famous and still surviving Irish linen industry. The current author (RSF) suspects that C. sativa probably persisted here in the Province of Ulster (the nine northern counties of Ireland), longer than it did in other parts of Ireland.
Fermanagh occurrence
Despite this historical connection with the Ulster linen industry, Gold-of-pleasure has only once been recorded in Fermanagh as listed above. In recent decades, C. sativa has been re-introduced to these islands in a fresh context. It is again spreading as a local casual throughout B & I, the seed being a constituent of wild bird food mixtures, provided on garden bird tables (Hanson & Mason 1985; Clement & Foster 1994). Nowadays, it frequents various forms of disturbed ground, for instance near feeders in gardens, chicken runs, dockyards, waste ground and rubbish tips (D.A. Pearman, in: Preston et al. 2002). We believe it is only a matter of time before it appears again in Fermanagh from this type of source.
Irish and British occurrence
The New Atlas records just five post-1987 10-km squares recorded for the species in Ireland, one in Co Dublin (H21) and the remainder in Co Limerick (H8) along the estuary of the River Shannon. The Census Catalogue of the flora of Ireland lists a further 14 VCs from which old records exist, but where it is now regarded as extinct (Scannell & Synnott 1987). Similarly, the New Atlas plots just 43 10-km squares with post-1987 records for the species in Britain (Preston et al. 2002).
European and world occurrence
As a consequence of its connection with Flax cultivation, the native range of C. sativa is uncertain. At present, it is widespread in C & SE Europe and in SW Asia and has also been (presumably accidentally) introduced to the Far East, N & S America and Australasia (Rich 1991).
Names
The genus name 'Camelina' appears to be derived from two Greek words meaning 'on the ground' or 'dwarf' and 'flax', that is, 'Dwarf Flax', which is one of the alternative English common names and obviously a direct translation. The Latin specific epithet 'sativa', applied to so many plants, as always means 'planted' or 'cultivated' (Gilbert-Carter 1964). Other English common names include, amongst others in Britten & Holland (1886), 'Cheat', 'Dutch Flax' and 'Gold of Pleasure', all of which probably allude to the fact that the seed appears like flax but is not! The rather poetic name 'Gold of Pleasure' is said by C.P. Johnson in his 1862 book The useful plants of Great Britain to, "bear ironical reference to the disappointment of its first cultivators here, who found their investment in it about as profitable as gold squandered on 'pleasure' usually proves." (Watts 2000).
The very ingenious derivation of this English name given by Prior (1879) based on an account of an oil-producing plant he says is mentioned by 'Gerarde', involving the corruption of 'Oleo de Alegria' to 'Oro de alegria' (Gold of Pleasure). Unfortunately, this passage does not appear to refer to Camelina sativa at all (see Gerard 1633, p. 273) and despite quite a diligent search of the latter reference, the current author has failed to locate the passage to which Prior refers.
Threats
None.