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Milk Maids
Cardamine californica
  
3 Nurseries Carry This Plant

About Milk Maids (Cardamine californica) 3 Nurseries Carry This Plant Cardamine californica (Milkmaids) (also Dentaria californica) is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae, native to western North America from Washington to California and Baja California. It is common in a variety of habitats including shady slopes, open woodlands, chaparral and grasslands in the winter and early spring. In the San Francisco Bay Area, it is one of the first wildflowers to bloom, with blossoms from January to May. Cardamine californica is a herbaceous perennial plant growing to about 1 foot tall. The flowers are produced on a spike, each flower about 1/2 inch in diameter with four white petals. The flower closes its petals in late afternoon as the sun goes down and nods its pedicel before a rain, protecting the pollen. Hand pollination of two milkmaids populations in the San Francisco Presidio improved seed set from 8% to 85%, with seeds ripening in about 53 days.
Plant Description
Plant Type
Plant Type
Perennial herb

Size
Size
1 ft tall

Flower Color
Flower Color
White

Wildlife Supported
 


 
Butterflies & moths hosted ( 1 confirmed , 1 likely * ) SHOW ALL
Anthocharis sara Image
Sara Orangetip Anthocharis saraAnthocharis sara
*
Pieris marginalis Image
Margined White Pieris marginalisPieris marginalis

Landscaping Information
Sun
Sun
Full Sun, Part Shade

Nurseries
Nurseries
Carried by 3

Common uses
Common uses
Deer Resistant

Natural Setting
Climate
Climate
Annual Precipitation: 9.5" - 153.3", Summer Precipitation: 0.14" - 5.88", Coldest Month: 25.8" - 57.2", Hottest Month: 47.0" - 78.7", Humidity: 0.01" - 27.12", Elevation: -293" - 9028"

Alternative Names
Common Names: Bitter Cress, California Toothwort, Milkmaids, Tooth Wort


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Sources include: Wikipedia. All text shown in the "About" section of these pages is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Plant observation data provided by the participants of the California Consortia of Herbaria, Sunset information provided by Jepson Flora Project. Propogation from seed information provided by the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden from "Seed Propagation of Native California Plants" by Dara E. Emery. Sources of plant photos include CalPhotos, Wikimedia Commons, and independent plant photographers who have agreed to share their images with Calscape. Other general sources of information include Calflora, CNPS Manual of Vegetation Online, Jepson Flora Project, Las Pilitas, Theodore Payne, Tree of Life, The Xerces Society, and information provided by CNPS volunteer editors, with special thanks to Don Rideout. Climate data used in creation of plant range maps is from PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University, using 30 year (1981-2010) annual "normals" at an 800 meter spatial resolution.

Links:   Jepson eFlora Taxon Page  CalPhotos  Wikipedia  Calflora


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