Spring Creek bladderpod

Lesquerella perforata Rollins, Rhodora 54: 190. 1952

Annuals; pubescent, hirsute, or glabrate, trichomes simple, with branched, smaller ones. Stems erect, outer ones usually decumbent at base, 1-1.5 dm. Basal leaves: blade 2-5 cm × 5-15 mm, margins lyrately lobed, (lobes) entire or dentate, (lateral lobes broadly oblong, margins becoming remote basally, terminal lobes orbicular or ovate, apex obtuse to more pointed), surfaces hirsute (trichomes mostly simple, marginal ones branched, smaller). Cauline leaves: blade broadly oblong to nearly ovate, 0.8-2 cm × 4-8 mm, base auriculate, sagittate, margins dentate, (abaxial surface with simple and branched trichomes, adaxial surface hirsute, trichomes simple). Fruiting pedicels divaricate-ascending, straight, (scarcely swollen apically), 6-12 mm, uniformly pubescent (trichomes branched, or simple and branched). Flowers: sepals 3.5-5 × 1.5-2 mm, pubescent (trichomes relatively large and small, branched); petals white to pale lavender (with pale yellow claw, sometimes tinged light purple when dry), 7-9 × 5-6 mm, apex emarginate to rounded; filaments dilated basally, (anthers oblong, 1.3-1.5 mm, glandular tissue subtending all filaments, nearly surrounding those of single stamens, with projections between single and paired stamens). Fruits subsessile, broadly obovoid to subpyriform, (inflated, papery), 4-6 × 4 mm, (widest distal to middle); valves sparsely hirsute or glabrate outside, trichomes simple or branched, densely pubescent inside, trichomes dendritic; replum not flattened; septum perforated to nearly absent, consisting of a narrow rim; ovules 4-12 per ovary; style 1.5-2.5 mm, glabrous; stigma not or slightly expanded. Seeds suborbicular or orbicular, 1.2-2.5 × 1.2-2 mm. 2n = 16.

Flowering Mar-May. Open fields, pastures, flood plains, roadsides; of conservation concern; 100-200 m; Tenn.

Paysonia perforata has a very limited distribution in Rutherford and Wilson counties. It is in the Center for Plant Conservation’s National Collection of Endangered Plants.