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Mineral King draba

Draba cruciata

Mineral King draba is a small, mat-forming perennial from high subalpine mountains in the southern Sierra Nevada of California, known only from Tulare County. It is a rare alpine plant that is best left to its native habitat rather than grown in gardens.

Family
Brassicaceae (Cabbage family)
Grows as
Perennial
Light
Full sun
Water
Water sparingly, letting the soil dry between waterings, as it is adapted to snowmelt and dry summers.
Soil
Very fast-draining gritty or rocky mineral mix.
Temperature
Tolerates cold; suited to subalpine conditions with hard winters and cool summers.
How easy
Hard
Native range
SC. California
Climate
subalpine or subarctic

About

Draba cruciata is a species of flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae known as the Mineral King draba. This is an uncommon plant endemic to California, where it is known only from the Sierra Nevada in Tulare County. It was named for Mineral King, a historic valley in the area. This plant is a squat, mat-forming perennial adapted to high mountain climates. It has small paddle-shaped leaves covered in a thick coat of hairs. It bears an inflorescence of 5 to 20 yellow flowers, each flower about a centimeter across. The stem bears widely spaced fruits, which are siliques about a centimeter long each.

Other Draba plants

Yellow whitlow-grass · Slender draba · Alpine draba · Draba aretioides · Rough draba · Lake Tahoe draba · Mt. Lassen draba · Draba bertiscea · Cushion draba · Snowbasin draba · Draba cacuminum · California draba

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Draba cruciata 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.

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