Purple Cress

(Cardamine douglassii)

 

Color Photograph: Midwestern wetland flora: Field office guide to plant species. U.S.D.A. Soil Conservation Service, Midwest National Technical Center.

Line Drawing: Britton, N.L., and A. Brown. 1913. An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States and Canada, Second Edition.

 

Purple Cress (Cardamine douglassii)

Identification: Flowers light pink to purple, in a terminal cluster. Seed pods elongate with a distinct apical beak. Pods on long stalks and projecting outward and upward. Basal leaves kidney-shaped on long petioles. Middle and upper leaves broad and irregularly sharply dentate. Plant 0.35 to 1 foot in height.

Distribution: Southern Canada and the northeastern United States, southward to Arkansas and Mississippi.

Habitat: Purple Cress is most commonly found in wet woods and near springs.

Flowering Period: March to May.

Purple Cress (Cardamine douglassii)

Similar Species:

The combination of the pink to purple flowers with the reniform basal leaves with long petioles will readily identify this species.

Similar Species

No Similar Species