Draba albertina

Alaska whitlow grass

Family: Brassicaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Alaska whitlow grass is a California native perennial found in the Sierra Nevada, northern Sierra Nevada, Santa Barbara Islands, Modoc Plateau, and White and Inyo Mountains in moist meadows, streambanks, woodland, and rocky knolls at elevations of 900 to 3,700 meters. Flowering from June to August, this plant produces small yellow flowers about 2 to 3 millimeters wide. Growing with branched stems 5 to 30 centimeters tall, it has a delicate, spreading growth habit. Its basal leaves are oblanceolate to obovate, 3 to 28 millimeters long, with fine ciliate edges and varying hair types on leaf surfaces. The fruit is a slender linear pod 4 to 12 millimeters long, bearing 20 to 44 small oblong seeds.

Habitat: Moist meadows, streambanks, woodland, rocky knolls, disturbed areas

Bloom period: Jun-Aug

Elevation: 900-3700 m

Bioregions: CaRH, SNH, SnGb, MP, n SNE, W&ampI

California counties: Fresno, Inyo, Los Angeles, Mono, Tulare, Tuolumne, Alpine, Nevada, Mariposa, Modoc, Placer, Madera, El Dorado, Shasta, Lassen, Sierra, Siskiyou, Trinity

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