Arabis mcdonaldiana

Mcdonald's rockcress, McDonald's rockcress, McDonald's rockcress

Family: Brassicaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Conservation status: CNPS 1B.1 · Endangered

McDonald's rockcress is a rare (CNPS 1B.1) California native perennial found in the northern Coast Ranges on deep red soils, steep slopes, dry ridges, and serpentine areas at elevations of 200 to 1,800 meters. Flowering from May to June, this plant produces purple flowers with spoon-shaped petals 8 to 16 millimeters long. Growing with slender stems 15 to 40 centimeters tall, it develops a branched caudex with few to many simple stems. Its basal leaves are 1 to 4 centimeters long, entire to wavy-margined, with cauline leaves spaced along the stem, oblong and unlobed. The fruit is an erect to ascending silique 2 to 4 centimeters long and 1.5 to 2 millimeters wide.

Habitat: Deep +- red soils, steep slopes, dry ridges, serpentine areas

Bloom period: May-Jun

Elevation: 200-1800 m

Bioregions: NCoRO.

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.