Descurainia adenophora

White tansy mustard

Family: Brassicaceae · Type: biennial · Native

White tansy mustard is a California native biennial found in the eastern Peninsular Ranges and eastern Mojave Desert in gravelly flats, open woodland, and lake margins at elevations of 900 to 2,200 meters. Flowering from May to August, this plant produces small, delicate yellow flowers with oblanceolate petals 1.8 to 2.6 millimeters long. Growing with glandular, branched stems 4.5 to 13 decimeters tall that are canescent (gray-white hairy), it develops a distinctive branching structure in its upper portions. Its leaves are intricately divided, with basal and lower cauline leaves having 2 to 5 pairs of oblanceolate to lanceolate lateral lobes 4 to 12 millimeters long, which can be entire or slightly serrated. The plant produces linear fruits 8 to 16 millimeters long, with sparse hairs and containing 48 to 64 small ellipsoid seeds.

Habitat: Gravelly flats, open woodland, lake margins

Bloom period: May-Aug

Elevation: 900-2200 m

Bioregions: e PR, DMoj

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