Thysanocarpus laciniatus

Common lace pod

Family: Brassicaceae · Type: annual · Native

Common lace pod is a California native annual found in the North Coast Ranges, southern Sierra Nevada Foothills, Tehachapi, Sutter Buttes, San Francisco Bay Area, southern Coast Ranges, southwestern California, southern Sierra Nevada, and desert regions in oak woodland, rocky ridges, slopes, chaparral, and washes at elevations of 100 to 1,800 meters. Flowering from March to May, this delicate plant produces small flowers with purple fertile anthers, occasionally featuring whitish or yellowish infertile anthers. Growing 10 to 60 centimeters tall with an unbranched stem that is generally glaucous and glabrous, it has distinctive basal leaves that are oblanceolate to elliptic, ranging from 2 to 6 centimeters long and varying from nearly entire to wavy-dentate or pinnately lobed. Its cauline leaves are linear to narrowly elliptic with wedge-shaped bases, sometimes subtly lobed. The fruit is a distinctive lace-like pod 3 to 5 millimeters wide, with a flat or slightly incurved wing and occasional club-shaped hairs.

Habitat: Oak woodland, rocky ridges, slopes, chaparral, washes

Bloom period: Mar-May

Elevation: 100-1800 m

Bioregions: NCoRI, s SNF, Teh, ScV (Sutter Buttes), SnFrB, SCoR, SW, SNE, D

California counties: San Luis Obispo, Monterey, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Inyo, Kern, Orange, Riverside, San Benito, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Ventura, Contra Costa, Santa Cruz, Yolo, Solano, Alameda, Tulare, Sutter, Napa, Tehama, Stanislaus, Sonoma, Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Merced, Glenn, Fresno, Colusa, Shasta, El Dorado, San Francisco, Madera

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