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Cardamine californica
Also called American Milkmaids, California Toothwort, Tooth Wort
Milkmaids (Cardamine californica) is a native western North American wildflower, a perennial in the cabbage family that grows about 30 cm tall and blooms early in the year, often in shade. It does best in cool, moist, shaded spots, and the key is to let it go dormant over summer.
Cardamine californica, or milkmaids, is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae, native to western North America from Washington to California and Baja California. It is common in a variety of habitats including shady slopes, open woodlands, chaparral and grasslands in the winter and early spring. In the San Francisco Bay Area, it is one of the first wildflowers to bloom, with blossoms from January to May.
Large Bitter Cress · Seaside bittercress · Slender toothwort · Cardamine barbaraeoides · Alpine bittercress · Brewer's bittercress · Coralroot bittercress · Bulbous bittercress · Cardamine carrii · Cutleaf toothwort · Constance's bittercress · New Zealand Bitter Cress
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Cardamine californica by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
