Nasturtium officinale

Water cress, Water Cress

Family: Brassicaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Water cress is a California native perennial found in the California Floristic Province, northern Sierra Nevada, White and Inyo Mountains, and Desert Mountains in streams, springs, marshes, lake margins, and swamps at elevations up to 3,000 meters. Flowering from March to November, this plant produces delicate white flowers 2.8 to 4.5 millimeters long with white petals. Growing with erect to decumbent branched stems 10 to 110 centimeters tall, it spreads across wet habitats with a somewhat glabrous appearance. Its compound leaves feature 3 to 9 leaflets, ranging from round to ovate or lanceolate, each 1 to 4 centimeters long with dentate or entire margins. The fruits develop as elongated pods 1 to 1.8 centimeters long, containing 36 to 60 small seeds.

Habitat: Streams, springs, marshes, lake margins, swamps

Bloom period: Mar-Nov

Elevation: < 3000 m

Bioregions: CA-FP, MP, n SNE, W&ampI, DMtns

California counties: Placer, Ventura, Orange, San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo, Alameda, Butte, Del Norte, Fresno, Inyo, Kern, Madera, Mono, Monterey, Riverside, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Siskiyou, Solano, Tulare, Santa Barbara, El Dorado, Glenn, Lake, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Shasta, Sonoma, Mariposa, Mendocino, Napa, Humboldt, Trinity, Calaveras, Tuolumne, Amador, Nevada, Plumas, Sierra, Sutter, Lassen, Contra Costa, Sacramento, Modoc, San Benito, Yuba, Stanislaus, Alpine, Tehama

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