White Mountain bladderpod

Lesquerella pinetorum Wooton & Standley, Contr. U.S. Natl. Herb. 16: 126. 1913

Perennials; caudex simple or branched; densely pubescent, trichomes (sessile or short-stalked), 6-8-rayed, rays furcate or bifurcate, (tuberculate, less so on outer layers). Stems simple or few from base, ascending to erect, (0.5-)1-2(-3.5) dm. Basal leaves: (petiole tapering to blade); blade rhombic to elliptic and irregularly angular, sometimes spatulate to oblanceolate, 1.5-7.5(-10) cm, margins entire. Cauline leaves: (not or loosely overlapping, petiolate or distal sessile); blade spatulate to oblanceolate, 1-4 cm, margins entire. Racemes crowded, elongated. Fruiting pedicels (ascending, curved or sigmoid), 6-12(-20) mm. Flowers: sepals ovate, oblong, or elliptic 4-7.5 mm, (median pair thickened apically, cucullate); petals spatulate or broadly cuneate, 6-13 mm, (claw slightly expanded at base). Fruits (substipitate), globose or obovoid to ellipsoid, sometimes slightly obcompressed, 4-9 mm; valves (not retaining seeds after dehiscence), glabrous throughout; replum as wide as or wider than fruit; ovules 4-24 per ovary; style (2-)4-7 mm. Seeds flattened. 2n = 10.

Flowering Apr-Jul. Scrub oak, pinyon-juniper woodland, open ponderosa pine forests, these sometimes mixed with Douglas fir, white pine, white fir, Engelmann spruce, or Gambel oak, on limestone-derived or other-wise basic soils, often in rock crevices; 1400-2900 (-3400) m; Ariz., N.Mex.

Physaria pinetorum with reduced forms are found at high elevations; in disturbed, moist soils plants can become quite large, as in the Manzano Mountains. Densely cespitose plants with crowded racemes not exceeding the basal leaves are found at the crest (3200-3400 m) of the Sandia Mountains, New Mexico. These probably represent an undescribed taxon.