The Pocono Environmental Education Center – Engaging Young Scientists, Sustainability in Action

Cardamine parviflora, “small-flowered bittercress”, is a member of the Brassicaceae family. It is found throughout the eastern part of the United States and Canada. Flowering occurs from April through July. It has, as with all mustards, four separate sepals and four separate petals, six stamens, and one pistil with two united carpels. Each carpel has many ovules that start develop from the base of the ovary. Flowers were collected near Rocky Ridge County Park, York, PA and immediately fixed in FPA50. At least 24 h later collections were serially dehydrated to 100% ETOH, and placed in Herr clearing fluid. A Nikon SMZ-U dissecting microscope was used for ovule removal and an attached DSFi1 Nikon digital camera was used to capture the images. Ovules, on the Raj slides, were viewed using a Nikon Eclipse 80i microscope with phase contrast to determine developmental stages and the attached Nikon digital cameras DS-Ri1 was used for image capture. Images of all stages of megasporogenesis and megagametogenesis were saved. A few morphological features determined from this study include are, ovules are campyloptropous, bitegmic and show Polygonum Type megagametophytic development. Developmental features reported here are compared with previous studies of Arabidopsis thaliana L. and Draba verna L. [ J PA Acad Sci 87(3): 120-124, 2013 ]