Arabis glabra (L.)Bernh. (Turritis glabra L.) see also Ararbis turritis. Conservation status: VU First record: ?Gerarde, 1597 or Jackson, c.1730 Turritis. Towers Mustard. Towers Treacle groweth.... and where flax did grow about Cambridge. Gerard,1597,212-3;1633 & 1636, 272. [Towers Mustard looks like Arabis glabra, not illustrated in 1597, but there is a good figure in 1633 and 1636, but no locality. This chapter appears to be muddled: 3. Camelina Treacle Wormeseed, looks like Erysimum cheiranthoides, and not Camelina, which used to be a weed of flax fields. So Gerard may or may not have been referring to Arabis glabra as growing in flax fields. DE Coombe in litt.] Turritis Found where flax did grow about Cambridge (Gerard) We have not yet met with it. Ray,1660,172(122). Deleted 'Found...it'; 'Trinity College' inserted and deleted. JM.ann. Martyn,1727,78. *Turritis glabra var.b. Mr Ray described this plant under the name of Barbarea muralis Bauh.Hist. but it is the Turritis vulgatior of that author. Dr Martyn. Martyn,1763,15. ["Turritis glabra" Trinity bowling green Walls, Cambridge, June 1780." TJ Woodward, in Hb Brewer, RTE, and see DE Allen, Wats.(1982),14:1780. (Error for Arabis turrita L.)]. 25 Turritis vulg. Ramosa Tourn. 224. In ye Corn at Gamlingay April [c.1730] Jackson,ann.78. Discovered in 1912 by the present writer, one patch at the side of a lane off the Potton road at Gamlingay. Evans,1939. Gamllngay greensand, CE Moss, 27.7.1913, CGE. Gamlingay, 25.9.1924, Mills ann. In a lane between the Gamlingay–White Wood & Gamlingay–Potton Rds. 16.V.1948. This plant...has probably been known continously from this place by Dr WH Mills, altho' no-one at the Botany School appears to know it. Dr Mills called this Cow Lane: the locality is a dry sandy bank on the N. side of the road at 236.520. Just coming into flowering 8.V.1949, but the hairy, sinuate basal leaves barely withered (as they were on 16.V.1948). DE Coombe, Card Index. Still at Gamlingay, CD Pigott, 1949; SM Walters, JSL Gilmour, 1952. In considerable quantity by the side of a minor road at Gamlingay, (sketch map shows plants at 236.520), JE Raven. Past Gamlingay church on L. Go along main street & take 3rd turning to L. (X-rds in village)–rd. to Potton–then 1st. to R. down a lane. Plants grow on R. bank just before sharp bend to L. [236.520] PH Oswald, 14.5.1952. On S. facing bank of bungalow on N. side of West Road, Gamlingay ± across the road from Trif. subt. & Trif. striatum. 25. May 1995. N.B. Only two plants of Arabis seen in fl.–the more vigorous one with 3 flowering stems in the middle of the photo, under the lowest Hypochaeris radicata 'flower'. A second plant with a single inflorescence outside photo. Grid ref. as when seen by DE Coombe on 16 May 1948 and 8 May 1949. 236.520. caption on back of photo by DE Coombe.
