californica,[2] Limnanthes vinculans[3] ) The Limnanthaceae are members of a recently identified clade (Brassicales) of mustard oil producing plants.

All seven species of Limnanthes, with one British Columbian exception, occur solely in the California Floristic Province, most commonly occupying grassland or savanna vernal pool habitats.

Various taxa of this genus are prominent elements in the flora of the Great Central Valley "hogwallow" communities, the coastal prairie, and wet meadows of the Coast Ranges and the Sierra Nevada/Cascade foothills up to 1800 meters.

In favorable years Limnanthes can cover large areas with white flowers (hence the common name Meadowfoam) and in hogwallow habitats sometimes forms spectacular rings surrounding the deepest parts of the pools.

Two sorts of flowers are found in the family, reflecting different breeding systems: some taxa have inconspicuous perianths and reproduce largely by self-pollination.

Others have large, showy flowers, usually pentamerous and white, some with varying amounts of yellow or ultraviolet, others with prominent rose or brown veins and anthers.

A number of studies over the years have noted various morphological, developmental and embryological characters at variance with the Geraniales (as well as other groups to which Limnanthaceae have been assigned).

Maheshwari and Johri (1956) conducted an extensive investigation of the morphology of Floerkea noting that, among other things, the herbaceous habit, gynobasic style, unusual type of tetrasporic embryo sac and basal parietal placentation of the unitegmic, tenuinucellate ovules differ from the Geraniales which has among its woody to herbaceous members, (at most) lobed syncarpous gynoecia, monosporic embryo sacs, generally axile placentation and bitegmic, crassinucellate ovules.

[8] Hofmann and Ludewig (1985) undertook a similar detailed study of the morphology of Limnanthes douglasii and made systematic inferences from their findings.

Rodman et al. (1993, 1997)[11][12] assembled additional DNA sequence data sets for glucosinolate taxa and applied cladistic methods to generate hypotheses about relationship.