The Sea Rocket’s scientific name is Cakile edentula lacustris. This plant grows above the high tide line on sandy beach areas. It has fleshy leaves and stems. It is in the mustard or Brassicaceae family. It can grow from six to twenty inches tall and has a flower that is around one fourth of an inch wide. The flower is a pale lavender to white and grows in clusters. The bloom has four petals, four green sepals, six stamens and a pistil with a single style. It has oblong lanceolate (lance shaped ) sepals that are about one fourth of an inch long and they are glabrous, which means they have a smooth surface.The pedicels are green in color and also have a smooth surface. The oblong petals open wide when the flower is blooming. It blooms from the month of July to the month of September. The Sea Rocket has lobed green leaves that are thick and waxy.
After the flowers stop blooming an elongated seedpod replaces them. It is from one-half to three-fourth inches in length. The seedpod has a lower segment that has an oval shape. The upper segment is lanceoloid and has a tapered beak. The seedpod is constricted between the two segments.The upper segment contains one seed and the lower segment has one seed or none at all. The upper segment detaches from the lower at maturity. The upper segment will float away and is sometimes carried off by the waves of the lake or sea to eventually be deposited at a new beach area; and starts a new plant. The lower segment stays with the original plant and colonizes the same beach area as its mother plant.
The native habitats of the Sea Rocket are the seashore areas of North America, western Asia, Eurasia and Australia and the central Arabian deserts. The Sea Rocket does best in full sunlight and in moist to dry-mesic (dry soil) conditions and it likes sandy soil. It can adapt quite well to rocky shores or gravelly areas.
In the state of Illinois the Sea Rocket is so rare that it is now listed as threatened. It grows only in the shoreline of Lake Michigan in the northeastern part of the state. The plant can be found along the shores of some of the other Great Lakes The C. edentula is a similar plant that grows on the North American seashore.
