Few-seeded Draba - Draba oligosperma

Few-seeded Draba
Draba oligosperma Hook.

Family: Brassicaceae, Mustard
Genus: Draba

Description
General: tufted, mat-forming, usually somewhat grey-hairy
perennial. Stems many, leafless, 1-10 cm tall, short-hairy
throughout to hairless above.

Leaves: basal, tufted, partly overlapping, linear to linear-
spatulate, 3-12 mm long, 0.75-1.75 mm broad, the mid-
nerve and edges usually thickened, the lower surface, and
often also to some extent the upper surface and the edges,
covered with flat, doubly comb-like-branched hairs, the long
axis of the hairs mostly paralleling the midnerve of the leaf.

Flowers: about 3 to 15 in dense top clusters. Flower
stalks 3-10 mm long. The 4 sepals somewhat cupped,
greenish with yellowish edges, 2-3 mm long. The 4 petals
3-5 mm long, yellow to off-white, fading with age.
Flowering time: May-July.

Fruits: pods, ovate or oval to elliptic or oblong-obovate,
2.5-8 mm long, 2-4 mm broad, plane or somewhat inflated,
hairless to copiously short-hairy with simple, 2-branched or
comb-like-branched hairs. Style 0.1-1 mm long. Seeds
2-10, 1.4-1.8 mm long.

Distribution
Widespread on rocky ridges and montane slopes, often
down to the foothills and valleys, in w. and c. parts of MT.
Also in much of the Rocky Mts in w. Canada and U.S.

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Contents
Identification
English Names Index
Scientific Names Index
Family Index

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Varieties:

var. oligosperma Hook:
Hairyness of the pod valves coarse, the hairs simple and forked, usually backward-flat. Common in the Rocky Mts. from Alberta to WY and CO, w. to NV and the c. Sierra Nevada, CA, and through ID to n.e. OR and the c. Cascade range, WA, and n. to c. B.C.

var. pectinipila (Rollins) C. L. Hitchc.:
Hairyness of the pod valves fine, at least in part doubly comb-like-branched. Known only from UT and n.w. Park Co., WY, but to be expected in adj. MT.