For the English village, see Crambe, North Yorkshire

Crambe, North Yorkshire

Crambe is a village and civil parish in the Ryedale district of North Yorkshire, England. It is near the River Derwent and 6 miles south west of Malton, and is the home of the Karl Pearson family.-External links:*...

. For the sponge genus, see Crambe (sponge).

Crambe is a genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of Brassicaceae

Brassicaceae

Brassicaceae, a medium sized and economically important family of flowering plants , are informally known as the mustards, mustard flowers, the crucifers or the cabbage family....

 native to Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, southwest and central Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

 and eastern Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

. It includes among its species seakale

Seakale

Crambe maritima is a halophytic perennial plant in the genus Crambe that grows wild along the coasts of Europe, from the North Atlantic to the Black Sea. It has large fleshy glaucous collard-like leaves and abundant white flowers...

 (Crambe maritima), grown as a leaf vegetable

Leaf vegetable

Leaf vegetables, also called potherbs, green vegetables, greens, leafy greens or salad greens, are plant leaves eaten as a vegetable, sometimes accompanied by tender petioles and shoots...

, Crambe cordifolia

Crambe cordifolia

Crambe cordifolia, syn. Crambe glabrata DC., a colewort sometimes called Heartleaf crambe, is an ornamental plant native to the Caucasus. It is in the brassicaceae plant family and thus related to cabbage; the leaves emit a distinctive cabbagy odour when bruised...

 which is grown as an herbaceous border perennial, and Crambe abyssinica

Crambe abyssinica

Crambe abyssinica is an oilseed crop, native to the Mediterranean area. According to the Alternative Field Crops Manual, it is used as an industrial lubricant, a corrosion inhibitor, and as an ingredient in the manufacture of synthetic rubber. It can also be used in surfactants and slip and coating...

, which is grown for an oil from the seeds that has similar characteristics to whale

Whale

Whale is the common name for various marine mammals of the order Cetacea. The term whale sometimes refers to all cetaceans, but more often it excludes dolphins and porpoises, which belong to suborder Odontoceti . This suborder also includes the sperm whale, killer whale, pilot whale, and beluga...

 oil.

Crambe species are used as food plants by the larva

Larva

A larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle...

e of some Lepidoptera

Lepidoptera

Lepidoptera is a large order of insects that includes moths and butterflies . It is one of the most widespread and widely recognizable insect orders in the world, encompassing moths and the three superfamilies of butterflies, skipper butterflies, and moth-butterflies...

 species including Lime-speck Pug

Lime-speck Pug

The Lime-speck Pug is a moth of the family Geometridae. It is a common species throughout the Palearctic region, the Near East and North Africa....

.

As a perennial garden plant it produces spectacular and large sprays of flowers some 1.5 m tall. These flowers comprise numerous small pale yellow to white florets distributed in three dimensions on slender but firm stems. They have a strong and pleasant fragrance of honey

Honey

Honey is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans...

. The leaves are unimpressive, looking like common cabbage leaves, although even they are quite good at ground coverage. The plant was somewhat popular in the Victorian era, fell from common usage in the 20th Century and is now making a comeback. It is a bold and impressive plant that fills a considerable volume of space.

Crambe abyssinica

Crambe abyssinica

Crambe abyssinica is an oilseed crop, native to the Mediterranean area. According to the Alternative Field Crops Manual, it is used as an industrial lubricant, a corrosion inhibitor, and as an ingredient in the manufacture of synthetic rubber. It can also be used in surfactants and slip and coating...

, often just called Crambe in the literature, is grown for the oil from its seeds, which are used as a substitute for whale oil

Whale oil

Whale oil is the oil obtained from the blubber of various species of whales, particularly the three species of right whale and the bowhead whale prior to the modern era, as well as several other species of baleen whale...

.

Crambe maritima, a halophyte

Halophyte

A halophyte is a plant that grows where it is affected by salinity in the root area or by salt spray, such as in saline semi-deserts, mangrove swamps, marshes and sloughs, and seashores. An example of a halophyte is the salt marsh grass Spartina alterniflora . Relatively few plant species are...

, forms a tumbleweed

Tumbleweed

A tumbleweed is the above-ground part of a plant that, once mature and dry, disengages from the root and tumbles away in the wind. Usually, the tumbleweed is the entire plant apart from the roots, but in a few species it is a flower cluster. The tumbleweed habit is most common in steppe and desert...

.