Draba verna

Spring draba

Family: Brassicaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Spring draba is a naturalized annual found in California's Foothill and Mountain Provinces in open or disturbed areas at elevations below 2,500 meters. Flowering from February to May, this plant produces small white flowers with deeply two-lobed petals 2 to 4.5 millimeters long. Growing 5 to 20 centimeters tall with an unbranched stem, it develops primarily basal leaves 2 to 18 millimeters long that are obovate to oblanceolate with simple hairs. Its leaves are distinctively entire or have 1 to 5 teeth, with a mix of simple and two- to four-rayed hairs covering the leaf surfaces. The fruit is an obovate to oblanceolate pod 4 to 9 millimeters long, containing 32 to 70 tiny ovoid seeds.

Habitat: Open or disturbed areas

Bloom period: Feb-May

Elevation: < 2500 m

Bioregions: CA-FP, MP

California counties: Nevada, Kern, Alameda, Fresno, Humboldt, Lake, Mariposa, Mendocino, Modoc, Monterey, Riverside, San Diego, Santa Clara, Trinity, Butte, Los Angeles, Napa, Siskiyou, El Dorado, Shasta, Ventura, San Bernardino, Plumas, Tuolumne, Tulare, San Luis Obispo, Amador, Yolo, Calaveras, Madera, Sierra, Glenn, Marin, Stanislaus, Lassen, Sonoma, Tehama, Contra Costa, Placer, Alpine, Del Norte, San Benito, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Colusa

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