Cardamine nuttallii
Nuttall's toothwort
Family: Brassicaceae · Type: perennial · Native
Conservation status: CNPS 3.3
Nuttall's toothwort is a California native perennial found in northwestern California and northern and central Sierra Nevada Mountains in moist sites, canyons, and forest habitats at elevations of 150 to 2,200 meters. Flowering from March to May, this plant produces pale pink to purple (occasionally white) flowers 1 to 1.5 centimeters long with petals 4 to 7.5 millimeters wide. Growing with simple stems 5 to 20 centimeters tall, it has a slender rhizome with fleshy segments 2 to 5 millimeters wide. Its leaves are simple or compound with 3 to 5 leaflets, featuring a terminal leaflet 1.3 to 4 centimeters long, reniform to round in shape, with crenate or dentate margins and a cordate base. The fruit is 2.6 to 5.6 centimeters long with 8 to 16 seeds, each about 2 to 2.5 millimeters long.
Habitat: Generally moist sites, canyons, forest
Bloom period: Mar-May
Elevation: 150-2200 m
Bioregions: NW, n&c SNH
California counties: Plumas, Glenn, El Dorado, Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino, Yuba, Siskiyou, Placer, Trinity, Butte, Tuolumne, Santa Cruz, Nevada, Lake, Lassen, Shasta, Mariposa
Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.