Wildflowers of Southern Arizona
Heller's Draba Draba.
Draba helleriana.
Mustard (Brassicaceae) family.
Duration: Perennial. Nativity: Native. Lifeform: Forb/Herb. General: Herbaceous biennials to perennials, to 40 cm tall, stems 1-several arising from a caudex, branching above, leafy to the inflorescence, herbage hirsute throughout, trichomes simple, cruciform or with with 3-5 rays. Leaves: Basal leaves few from a basal rosette, petiolate, oblanceolate to obovate, 1-4 cm long, 2-7 mm wide, margins entire to dentate, cauline leaves alternate, sessile, oval, lanceolate, or oblong, 1-6 cm long, margins entire or shallowly dentate, blade surfaces pubescent. Flowers: Yellow, petals oblanceolate, pubescent to glabrous, 5-7 mm long, and 1.5-2 mm wide, sepals oblong, 2.5-4 mm long, pubescent, styles 1-3.5 mm long, flowers borne in dense racemes of 10-52 or more, these without bracts, the racemes becoming elongate, 4-10 mm long, horizontal and divaricate-ascending in fruit. Fruits: Strongly compressed silicles, elliptic-lanceolate, 5-15 mm long and 2-3.5 mm wide, slightly to strongly twisted or plane, flattened, pubescent, the trichomes mostly 2-rayed, fruiting pedicels erect to ascending. Seeds oblong, roughly 1 mm long and wide. Ecology: Found in oak and pine fir woodlands, aspen groves, rocky meadows, from 7,000-12,000 ft (2134-3658 m); flowering June-September. Distribution: Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona; Mexico. Ethnobotany: The plant was made into a drink and taken when not feeling well, a decoction of leaves was taken for bad cough, sore kidney or gonorrhea, and the whole plant was used as a ceremonial emetic.
Santa Catalina Mountains.
Trico Road
Location: In soil beside tree beside road.
6/22/17
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