Phoenicaulis cheiranthoides

Common phoenicaulis

Family: Brassicaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Common phoenicaulis is a California native perennial found in the Klamath Ranges, northern Coast Ranges, California Ranges, Sierra Nevada, and Great Basin in volcanic, rocky areas, meadows, and sagebrush scrub at elevations of 1,000 to 3,200 meters. Flowering from April to June, this plant produces pink to purple flowers 9 to 13 millimeters long with obovate-oblanceolate petals. Growing with simple stems 12 to 25 centimeters tall, it develops a well-developed woody caudex covered in many-branched, tree-like hairs. Its basal leaves form a rosette of linear-oblanceolate to obovate blades 2 to 7 centimeters long, while cauline leaves are smaller, ovate to oblong, and sessile. The plant produces elongated siliques 2 to 6 centimeters long with 8 to 16 seeds arranged in a single row.

Habitat: Volcanic, rocky areas, barren clay slopes, sandy banks, meadows, hillsides, sagebrush scrub

Bloom period: Apr-Jun

Elevation: 1000-3200 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoRH, CaRH, SNH, GB

California counties: Alpine, Inyo, Lassen, Mendocino, Modoc, Mono, Nevada, Plumas, Siskiyou, Trinity, Tuolumne, Humboldt, Sierra, Placer, Mariposa, Lake, Marin, Shasta, Tulare, Madera, Tehama

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