Cardamine hirsuta (Hairy bittercress), a common weed, is developed as a model system for studies in evolution of development. C. hirsuta is related to the reference plant Arabidopsis thaliana (Thale cress) and, like A. thaliana, is amenable to both forward and reverse genetics approaches, including efficient transgenesis. However, C. hirsuta and A. thaliana differ in key morphological traits, including leaf shape, shoot branching, floral structure and fruit development.

Here we report the sequencing, assembly and annotation of the genomes of Cardamine hirsuta and also the transcriptome. Comparative studies between Cardamine hirsuta and A. thaliana can greatly enrich our knowledge of the molecular mechanisms driving evolution of form.

The genome paper now is publicly availabe from Nature Plants web site.