# 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.

- **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.

## About

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...

## Sources

- Plate: https://gaia-dex.com/species/a2d18acf-7101-4323-8f61-fa4c60ab61ce
- iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/159836
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardamine impatiens
- Conservation status: IUCN Red List category, as recorded by Gaia-Dex
- Photo: https://inaturalist-open-data.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/513754468/medium.jpg (Tom Norton, CC-BY, via iNaturalist)

Habitat, diet, size and similar notes are AI-written summaries; check them against the linked sources before relying on them.