Lepidium coronopus

Swine cress, Swine Cress

Family: Brassicaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Swine cress is a naturalized annual found in the Sacramento Valley, San Francisco Bay Area, and Desert Sonoran regions in disturbed areas, fields, and pastures at elevations below 300 meters. Flowering from March to June, this plant produces small white flowers about 1 to 2 millimeters wide in delicate clusters. Growing with prostrate to decumbent stems 15 to 35 centimeters tall, it branches extensively near the base. Its basal leaves are 4 to 10 centimeters long, intricately divided into pinnate segments with entire or slightly toothed lobes. The distinctive flattened, kidney-shaped fruits are 2.3 to 3.4 millimeters long with thick, prominently veined walls.

Habitat: Disturbed areas, fields, pastures

Bloom period: Mar-Jun

Elevation: < 300 m

Bioregions: ScV, SnFrB, DSon

California counties: Contra Costa, Yolo, Imperial, Alameda, Solano

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