Spring Cress (Cardamine bulbosa)
- Family: Mustard (Brassicaceae)
- Flowering: March-June.
- Field Marks: This is the only bittercress with large flowers and untoothed or merely toothed, not deeply divided leaves.
- Habitat: Low woods, wet meadows, along streams, marshes.
- Habit: Perennial herbs with short, thick tubers.
- Stems: Erect, usually unbranched, smooth, up to 15 inches tall.
- Leaves: Of 2 kinds, the basal oblong to ovate, usually heart-shaped at base, on long leaf stalks, the leaves of the stem alternate, simple, ovate to lanceolate, pointed at the tip, tapering to the base, without teeth or with sparse teeth, smooth, up to 2 inches long, usually without leaf stalks.
- Flowers: Several in terminal racemes, white, with slender stalks.
- Sepals: 4, green, smooth.
- Petals: 4, white, free from each other, 1/2-2/3 inch long.
- Stamens: 6.
- Pistils: Ovary superior.
- Fruits: Pods linear, very slender, up to 1 inch long, with a sterile beak up to 1/4 inch long; seeds dark brown, about 1/10 inch long.
- Notes: The tuber of this species can be used as a substitute for horseradish. The young stems and leaves can be used fresh in salads.
Previous Species -- American Bellflower (Campanula americana)
Return to Species List -- Group 8
Next Species -- Purple Cress (Cardamine douglassii)
