Lepidium fremontii
Desert allysum
Family: Brassicaceae · Type: perennial · Native
Desert allysum is a California native perennial found in southeastern Sierra Nevada, San Gabriel Mountains, San Bernardino Mountains, southern eastern Sierra Nevada, White and Inyo Mountains, and Deserts in sandy or gravelly soils, washes, and pinyon-juniper woodlands at elevations of 450 to 2,100 meters. Flowering from March to June, this plant produces small white flowers in elongated panicles with spoon-shaped petals 2.5 to 4.2 millimeters long. Growing 2 to 5.5 meters tall with several erect or ascending stems emerging from a woody base, it forms a shrubby habit with multiple branches. Its mid-cauline leaves are pinnately 3 to 7-lobed, with linear lobes 1 to 2.8 millimeters wide, and the plant appears glaucous and glabrous. The fruit is a flat, winged, obovate structure 4.5 to 7 millimeters wide with a small notch at the tip.
Habitat: Sandy or gravelly soils, washes, barren knolls, bluffs, pinyon/juniper woodland, rocky slopes
Bloom period: Mar-Jun
Elevation: 450-2100 m
Bioregions: se SNH, SnGb, SnBr, s SNE, W&I, D
California counties: Riverside, San Bernardino, Inyo, Imperial, Kern, Los Angeles, Mono, San Diego, Santa Barbara
Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.