Physaria obcordata

Perennials; caudex branched, (thick, covered with persistent, overlapping leaf bases); densely (silvery) pubescent, trichomes (stellate-scalelike), several-rayed, rays fused (webbed) to tips. Stems several from base, erect to decumbent, (unbranched, fertile stems from among basal leaves), 1.2-1.8 dm. Basal leaves (erect, not rosulate); blade broadly oblanceolate, 4-8 cm, margins entire or shallowly sinuate-dentate, (apex acute). Cauline leaves: (proximal petiolate); blade narrowly lanceolate, similar to basal in size, (distal with cuneate base), margins entire. Racemes loose, (elongated in fruit). Fruiting pedicels (widely spreading to recurved), 1-1.5 cm. Flowers: sepals (greenish yellow), elliptic, often broadly so, 4.8-7.1 mm; petals oblanceolate, 6.8-9.8 mm. Fruits (usually pendent), slightly didymous apically, obcordate, slightly inflated, 4-7 × 3-6 mm, (papery, basal sinus absent, apical sinus evident to nearly absent); valves (retaining seeds after dehiscence), pubescent; replum broadly obovate to suborbicular, 4-5 mm, as wide as or wider than fruit, margins entire; ovules usually 4 (rarely 6-8) per ovary; style (2.5-)3-4(-5) mm. Seeds plump.

Flowering May-Jun. Steep slopes, fine chiprock, shaley hillsides; of conservation concern; 1800-2300 m; Colo.

Physaria obcordata is known from the Thirteenmile Creek Tongue and the Parachute Creek Member of the Green River Formation. It is in the Center for Plant Conservation´s National Collection of Endangered Plants.