narrow-leaved bittercress
Cardamine impatiens
Its seed pods utilize rapid cellular deformation to explosively catapult seeds up to two meters away when brushed by passing animals.
- Scientific name
- Cardamine impatiens
- Taxonomy
- Plantae › Tracheophyta › Magnoliopsida › Brassicales › Brassicaceae › Cardamine
- IUCN Red List status
- Least Concern
- Population trend
- stable
- Biome
- forest
- Habitat
- Damp, shaded forest floors, woodland margins, riverbanks, and stony waste ground.
- Diet
- Autotrophic (Photosynthetic)
- Range
- Europe, Temperate Asia, North America (introduced)
- Size
- 15 to 60 cm tall
- Lifespan
- 1 to 2 years (annual or biennial)
- Active
- diurnal
- Threats
- Canopy overgrowth causing excessive shade, habitat loss from urban development, and displacement by larger invasive weeds.
- Safe to approach?
- Harmless. You can safely approach and handle this plant. Touching the ripe seed pods will cause them to explosively rupture, scattering seeds; this is harmless and safe to observe up close. It is non-toxic, though culinary use is limited by its bitter taste.
Cardamine impatiens , the narrowleaf bittercress or narrow-leaved bitter-cress , is a plant species of the genus Cardamine belonging to the family Brassicaceae. It is a slender, biennial herb, that produces sterile leaves in the first year, one to several flowering stems during the next. Its leaves are pinnate with several pairs of lanceolate, dentate leaflets and a terminal, slightly longer leaflet. The short petals surpass the calyx by half of its length. The seeds are arranged in...
Photo: Tom Norton, CC-BY, via iNaturalist
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