A plant with high oleic and 0 hydroxy fatty acid (HFA) content was found in a population of Lesquerella fendleri, a Brassicaceae alternative new industrial crop. Lesquerella produces high quantities of lesquerolic acid, a HFA in its seed oil. This unique mutant may be valuable for investigating the function of genes involved in the biosynthesis of HFA using transgenic plants with this genetic background. A single half seed was identified with 471 g kg-1 of lesquerolic acid (C20:1-OH) and 297 g kg-1 of oleic acid (C18:1) compared to average values of 599 g kg-1 and 159 g kg-1 for the respective acids of 1000 seeds. The remaining half seed, which was cultured and grown to maturity, was then self pollinated and produced progeny of which 25 % contained 0 g kg-1 lesquerolic acid and an average of 783 g kg-1 oleic acid. The remaining 75% of the progeny averaged 506 g kg-1 lesquerolic acid and 241 g kg-1 oleic acid. The plants with 0 lesquerolic acid trait only produced progeny with the same trait when self pollinated, indicating the trait is recessive, possibly due to null alleles. Plants with the 0 lesquerolic acid trait, crossed to full sibs with 498 g kg-1 lesquerolic acid, produced significantly more 0 lesquerolic acid plants when used as a maternal rather than as the pollen parent, indicating maternal effects. When a full sib with 498 g kg-1 lesquerolic acid was self pollinated, the progeny were bimodal with about 20 % segregating for the 0 lesquerolic acid trait and the others between 250 and 400 g kg-1 lesquerolic acid. When the mutant plants were crossed to unrelated plants with 680 g kg-1 lesquerolic acid contents, the F1 progeny had a single modal curve for lesquerolic acid, similar to the phenotype of the unrelated plants.