Lepidium thurberi

Thurber's pepper grass

Family: Brassicaceae · Type: annual · Native

Thurber's pepper grass is a California native annual found in the Mojave Desert on saline flats, clay soils, grasslands, washes, and roadsides at elevations below 1,000 meters. Flowering from April to August, this plant produces delicate white flowers approximately 3 to 4 millimeters wide with broadly obovate petals. Growing with erect, many-branched stems 12 to 49 centimeters tall, it develops from a single base with fine hairs less than 1 millimeter long. Its basal leaves form early-deciduous rosettes 2 to 7 centimeters long with pinnately lobed margins, featuring oblong to ovate lobes that are dentate or sinuate. The small, flattened fruits are broadly ovate to round, 2 to 3 millimeters wide with winged tips and a tiny notch.

Habitat: Saline flats, clay soils, grassland, washes, roadsides

Bloom period: Apr-Aug

Elevation: < 1000 m

Bioregions: DMoj

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