Lepidium oblongum

Veiny pepper grass

Family: Brassicaceae · Type: annual · Native

Veiny pepper grass is a California native annual found in southern Central Coast and southwestern California on bluffs, slopes, disturbed areas, roadsides, flats, and pastures at elevations of 200 to 500 meters. Flowering from March to August, this plant produces small white flowers in elongated clusters with delicate, linear-oblanceolate petals. Growing with erect to decumbent stems 5 to 24 centimeters tall, branching toward the top and covered in stiff hairs. Its basal leaves are 0.7 to 3.5 centimeters long with 1 to 2 pinnate lobes, while mid-stem leaves are obovate to oblanceolate and sessile. The fruit is round to widely obovate, 2.2 to 3.5 millimeters long with a tiny winged tip.

Habitat: Bluffs, slopes, disturbed areas, roadsides, flats, pastures

Bloom period: Mar-Aug

Elevation: 200-500 m

Bioregions: s CCo, SW

California counties: Imperial, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Orange, San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles, San Joaquin, Nevada, San Bernardino, Riverside, Sacramento, Santa Clara, Colusa, Mendocino, Humboldt, Alameda, Tuolumne, Mariposa, Fresno, Siskiyou, Contra Costa, Amador, Calaveras, Yolo, Monterey

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