Barbarea orthoceras

American rocket

Family: Brassicaceae · Type: perennial · Native

American rocket is a California native perennial found in the California Floristic Province (excluding the Great Valley), Modoc Plateau, northern Eastern Sierra Nevada, and White and Inyo Mountains in damp meadows, wet rocks, streambanks, moist woodland, grassland, scree, and ledges at elevations up to 3,400 meters. Flowering from March to July, this plant produces bright yellow flowers 5 to 7 millimeters long with delicate sepals. Growing with branched stems 10 to 60 centimeters tall, it develops an upright, somewhat open structure. Its distinctive basal leaves are pinnately lobed, with 2 to 4 pairs of lateral lobes and a large terminal lobe that is ovate and sometimes irregularly toothed. The plant produces erect to ascending fruits 3 to 4 centimeters long, each containing 24 to 36 small ovate or oblong seeds.

Habitat: Damp meadows, wet rocks, streambanks, moist woodland, grassland, scree, ledges

Bloom period: Mar-Jul

Elevation: < 3400 m

Bioregions: CA-FP (exc GV), MP, n SNE, W&ampI

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

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