Athysanus pusillus

Athysanus

Family: Brassicaceae · Type: annual · Native

Athysanus is a California native annual found in the California Floristic Province, Modoc Plateau, and Granite Mountains in grassy, open slopes, rocky outcrops, and chaparral habitats at elevations below 2,000 meters. Flowering from February to June, this delicate plant produces small, spoon-shaped white to pale petals that are occasionally absent. Growing with hairy stems 5 to 30 centimeters tall, it forms a compact, slender structure. Its leaves are oblanceolate to obovate, ranging from 4 to 25 millimeters long, with basal leaves larger than the few sparse cauline leaves, and often featuring entire or slightly toothed edges. The tiny fruits are nearly round, approximately 2 to 2.5 millimeters wide, and adorned with small branched hairs.

Habitat: Grassy, open slopes, rocky outcrops, chaparral, flats, floodplains, cliffs, ledges

Bloom period: Feb-Jun

Elevation: < 2000 m

Bioregions: CA-FP, MP, DMtns (Granite Mtns)

California counties: Fresno, Kern, Ventura, Alameda, Butte, Contra Costa, Glenn, Lake, Los Angeles, Madera, Modoc, Napa, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Siskiyou, Sonoma, Tehama, Trinity, Tulare, Tuolumne, Imperial, Monterey, Nevada, Orange, Placer, San Benito, Santa Cruz, Lassen, Mendocino, El Dorado, Sierra, Yuba, Mariposa, Humboldt, Plumas, Calaveras, Colusa, Marin, Shasta, San Joaquin, Sutter, Amador, Stanislaus, Yolo, San Francisco, Merced, Del Norte, Kings, Alpine, Sacramento, Solano

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