Crambe

{{Short description|Genus of flowering plants}}

{{About|the plant genus|the English village|Crambe, North Yorkshire|other uses|Crambe (disambiguation)}}

{{Automatic taxobox

|image = Crambe_Maritima_Estonia.jpg

|image_caption = Crambe maritima in Estonia

|taxon = Crambe

|authority = L.

|subdivision_ranks = Species

|subdivision = See text

}}

Crambe is a genus of annual and perennial flowering plants in the family Brassicaceae, native to a variety of habitats in Europe, Turkey, southwest and central Asia and eastern Africa. They carry dense racemes of tiny white or yellow flowers on (mostly leafless) stems above the basal leaves.{{cite book|title=RHS A-Z encyclopedia of garden plants|year=2008|publisher=Dorling Kindersley|location=United Kingdom|isbn=978-1405332965|pages=1136}} Crambe hispanica subsp. abyssinica, formerly known as Crambe abyssinica, is grown for the oil from the seeds that has characteristics similar to whale oil.

The word "crambe" derives, via the Latin crambe, from the Greek κράμβη, a kind of cabbage.{{cite book|title=Shorter Oxford English dictionary, 6th ed.|year=2007|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=United Kingdom|isbn=978-0199206872|pages=3804}}

Crambe species are used as food plants by the larvae of the weevil Lixus canescens (Coleoptera)Skuhrovec, J. & Volovnik, S. (2015) Biology and morphology of immature stages of Lixus canescens (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Lixinae). Zootaxa, 4033(3): 350-362. and some Lepidoptera species including the lime-speck pug.