Boechera pulchra
Beautiful rockcress
Family: Brassicaceae · Type: perennial · Native
Beautiful rockcress is a California native perennial found in eastern Sierra Nevada, southern Great Valley, southern South Coast Ranges, Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges, southern Eastern Sierra, and eastern Mojave Desert in rocky, gravelly, sandy slopes of chaparral, sagebrush scrub, and evergreen woodland at elevations of 600 to 2,800 meters. Flowering from March to June, this plant produces purple to white flowers 9 to 16 millimeters long on delicate inflorescences with up to 25 flowers. Growing with erect stems 30 to 75 centimeters tall that emerge from a woody caudex, it has distinctive short-stalked, branched hairs covering its lower stem. Its basal leaves are narrow, 1 to 3 millimeters wide, with complex multi-rayed hairs and entire margins. The fruits are strongly reflexed and hairy, measuring 3.3 to 8 centimeters long with 68 to 106 seeds arranged in two rows.
Habitat: Rocky, gravelly, sandy slopes in chaparral, sagebrush scrub, evergreen woodland
Bloom period: Mar-Jun
Elevation: 600-2800 m
Bioregions: e&s SN, s GV, s SCoR, TR, PR, SNE, DMoj
California counties: Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Kern, Inyo, Ventura, San Luis Obispo, Tulare, Riverside, San Diego, Mono, Santa Barbara, Imperial
Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.