In the September issue of Plant Physiology, we describe the comparative genome structure of the Alpine Pennycress (Noccaea or Thlaspi caerulescens) and its evolution from an ancestral genome. We show that genome evolution in this important model species involved an unusually high number of pericentric inversions, which could have facilitated the evolution of enhanced metal homeostasis gene expression, a known hallmark of metal hyperaccumulation.