Biennials or perennials; (short-lived). Trichomes of leaves 2-5(-7)-rayed on adaxial leaf surface. Stems erect, unbranched or branched distally, 0.2-2.5 (-3.5) dm. Basal leaves: blade (fleshy or not), spatulate, 2-10 cm × 5-15 mm, base cuneate, margins dentate, entire, or lobed, apex obtuse. Cauline leaves (distal) sessile or short-petiolate; blade margins entire or dentate. Racemes elongated slightly in fruit. Fruiting pedicels horizontal to divaricate, slender, narrower than fruit, 4-15 mm. Flowers: sepals oblong, 7-14 mm, lateral pair saccate basally; petals yellow, usually suborbicular, rarely obovate, 15-30 × 6-14 mm, claw 10-15 mm, apex rounded; median filaments 10-13 mm; anthers linear, 3-4 mm. Fruits widely spreading or divaricate, linear, straight, not torulose, 3-14 cm × 2-4 mm, terete when green, becoming latiseptate when dry, not striped; valves with obscure midvein, pubescent outside, trichomes (2 or) 3 or 4 (or 6)-rayed, glabrous inside; ovules 32-74 per ovary; style cylindrical, slender, 0.3-2 mm, sparsely pubescent; stigma 2-lobed, lobes as long as wide. Seeds oblong (compressed), 1.8-2.8(-3.5) × 1-2 mm; winged distally (wing narrow all around). 2n = 36.

Flowering Jan-Aug. Stabilized coastal sand dunes; of conservation concern; 0-300 m; Calif.

Erysimum menziesii is restricted to the coasts of Humboldt, Mendocino, and Monterey counties. R. A. Price (1993) divided the species into four subspecies, three of which were invalidly published.