Brassicaceae flowers: diversity amid uniformity

The mustard family Brassicaceae, which includes the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, exhibits morphological stasis and significant uniformity of floral plan. Nonetheless, there is untapped diversity in almost every aspect of floral morphology in the family that lends itself to comparative study, including organ number, shape, form, and color. Studies on the genetic basis of morphological diversity, enabled by extensive genetic tools and genomic resources and the close phylogenetic distance among mustards, have revealed a mosaic of conservation and divergence in numerous floral traits. Here I review the morphological diversity of the flowers of Brassicaceae and discuss studies addressing the underlying genetic and developmental mechanisms shaping floral diversity. To put flowers in the context of the floral display, I describe diversity in inflorescence morphology and the variation that exists in the structures preceding the floral organs. Reconstructing the floral morphospace in Brassicaceae coupled with next-generation sequencing data and unbiased approaches to interrogate gene function in species throughout the mustard phylogeny offers promising ways to understand how developmental mechanisms originate and diversify.