Lepidium montanum

Mountain pepper grass

Family: Brassicaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Mountain pepper grass is a California native perennial found in the Great Basin, eastern California Ranges, and Mojave Desert in sandy, gravelly soils of pinyon-juniper woodlands and sagebrush scrub at elevations of 800 to 2,700 meters. Flowering from April to August, this plant produces small white flowers in elongated clusters with spoon-shaped petals 2.2 to 3.7 millimeters long. Growing 0.4 to 5 meters tall with many branches toward the upper stems, it forms occasional clumps with a somewhat woody base. Its leaves are distinctively lobed, ranging from 1.5 to 4 centimeters long, with pinnately divided segments that are either entire or lightly toothed. The fruit is a small, flattened ovate pod 2 to 4.3 millimeters long with a winged tip.

Habitat: Sandy, gravelly, generally saline soils, pinyon/juniper woodland, sagebrush scrub, rocky hillsides, roadsides

Bloom period: Apr-Aug

Elevation: 800-2700 m

Bioregions: CaRH, GB, DMoj

California counties: San Bernardino, Mono, Inyo, Siskiyou, Sierra, Modoc, Nevada

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