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Arabis serotina
Also called Shale barren rockcress, Shale Barren Rock Cress
Borodinia serotina is a rare species of flowering plant in the mustard family known by the common name shale barren rockcress. It is native to eastern West Virginia and western Virginia in and around the Shenandoah Valley, where it is known from 62 populations. It is endemic to the shale barrens, a type of habitat characterized by steep slopes of bare shale, an exposed, rocky habitat type that is subject to very dry and hot conditions. Shale barrens host a number of endemics, such as Allium oxyphilum and Taenidia montana, and this rockcress is among the rarest. It is a federally listed endangered species.
This endangered plant grows in mid-Appalachian shale barrens, an eroding shale scree of Devonian origin. This habitat occurs in Virginia pine woodlands and is made up of unstable rock and thin soils which are largely weathered fragments of shale known as channery. Most populations of the plant have a few individuals. The rocky soils receive direct sunlight that makes them too hot (up to 63 °C) to support many plant species.
Borodinia laevigata · Borodinia missouriensis · Borodinia perstellata · Short's Rockcress · Rockcress
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Borodinia serotina by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
