White bladderpod

Vesicaria grandiflora Hooker var. pallida Torrey & A. Gray, Fl. N. Amer. 1: 101. 1838; Alyssum pallidum (Torrey & A. Gray) Kuntze; Lesquerella pallida (Torrey & A. Gray) S. Watson; V. pallida (Torrey & A. Gray) Nuttall ex Torrey & A. Gray

Annuals (winter); with a fine taproot; sparsely pubescent, trichomes (minute), 3- or 4-rayed, rays furcate or, sometimes, trifurcate. Stems few to several from base, erect, (from basal leaf cluster, branched distally, flowering branches slender, subtended by bracts), 3-6 dm. Basal leaves: blade oblanceolate or broadly obovate, to 10 cm, margins usually sinuate-dentate or entire, sometimes lobed. Cauline leaves: (proximal shortly petiolate, distal sessile); blade oblanceolate to narrowly oblong, similar to basal, (distal with base slightly cuneate). Racemes paniculate, (rachises and pedicels more densely pubescent than proximal leaves). Fruiting pedicels (widely divaricate-ascending and straight, or slightly recurved), 10-15 mm, (slender, pubescent). Flowers: sepals elliptic, 3-7 mm, (median pair slightly thickened apically, cucullate); petals (white), broadly ovate, to 12 mm, (narrowing gradually to short claw). Fruits (widely spreading to nearly pendent in age, shortly stipitate), globose or subglobose, not or slightly inflated, 3-10 mm; valves (not retaining seeds after dehiscence), glabrous; replum as wide as or wider than fruit; ovules 8-12 per ovary; style ca. 2 mm, (slender, fragile). Seeds flattened. 2n = 12.

Flowering Apr-May. Grassy openings of small glade prairies, outcrops; of conservation concern; 90 m; Tex.

Physaria pallida is known from the Weches Formation in San Augustine County.