The 7–32-inch tall, leafy stems spread by rhizomes and can form dense stands in moist soils along mountain streams, canyon seeps, and alpine meadows. Note the showy, dense clusters of flowers with 4 petals (Mustard family) blooming on the stem tips, the heart-shaped leaves, and the erect, linear seed pods. Also called Large Mountain Bittercress.

FLOWER: June–September. Dense, rounded clusters have 5/8-inch wide (15 mm) flowers with 4 white, oval petals, each 1/4–1/2 inch long (7–12 mm). Fruit is a slender capsule (silique), erect, linear, 3/4–1 1/2-inches long (2–3.8 cm).

LEAVES: Alternate. Blades variable, oval to heart- or kidney-shaped, 3/4–2 3/4-inches long (2–7 cm); margins wavy to lined with coarse, shallow, rounded teeth or pointed lobes; surfaces hairless to hairy.

HABITAT: Sandy, gravelly moist soils, stream sides, canyons, moist meadows, alpine tundra; ponderosa-Douglas fir, spruce-fir-aspen forests.

ELEVATION: 7,872–10,075 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CA, CO, ID, NM, NV, OR, UT, WA, WY.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Other species of bittercress have lobed or compound leaves. Wild Candytuft, Noccaea fendleri, in the same range, has slender, clasping leaves and fruit that forms an egg-shaped disk.

NM COUNTIES: NM mountains in mid- to high-elevation, moist habitats: Catron, Colfax, Lincoln,  Los Alamos, Otero, Mora, Rio Arriba, San Miguel, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Taos