Descurainia incana

Mountain tansy mustard

Family: Brassicaceae · Type: biennial · Native

Mountain tansy mustard is a California native biennial found in the Klamath Ranges, Sierra Nevada, San Bernardino Mountains, and Great Basin in open sites, meadows, sagebrush scrub, and aspen groves at elevations of 100 to 3,500 meters. Flowering from May to September, this plant produces small yellow flowers with oblanceolate petals approximately 1.2 to 2 millimeters long. Growing with erect stems 2.5 to 12 decimeters tall, it develops many branches in its upper portion and appears hairy and grayish-green. Its leaves are widely lanceolate to oblanceolate, pinnately lobed with linear to oblong segments 3 to 10 millimeters long, becoming smaller and more narrow toward the stem's upper portions. The fruit develops as an erect, linear silique 5 to 10 millimeters long with smooth valves and contains 14 to 22 small ellipsoid seeds.

Habitat: Open sites, meadows, sagebrush scrub, open aspen groves, roadsides

Bloom period: May-Sep

Elevation: 100-3500 m

Bioregions: KR, SN, SnBr, GB

California counties: Tulare, Riverside, San Bernardino, Tuolumne, Mono, Placer, Alpine, Amador, Sierra, Nevada, Fresno, Siskiyou, Plumas, Lassen, El Dorado, Modoc, Glenn, Butte, Tehama, Mariposa, Madera, Inyo, San Diego, Trinity, Calaveras, Humboldt, Los Angeles

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