Cardamine micranthera

About

Cardamine micranthera is a rare species of flowering plant in the mustard family known by the common names small-anthered bittercress and streambank bittercress. It is endemic to the Piedmont region around the border between Virginia and North Carolina, and is today restricted to the Dan River watershed. It is in decline mainly because its habitat has been disturbed and destroyed by a number of processes. By the 1960s the only known populations of the plant had disappeared and in the 1970s it was feared extinct. The plant was rediscovered in the 1980s and for a while was presumed to be a rare North Carolina endemic; populations in Virginia have been confirmed since. The plant was federally listed as an endangered species in 1989 when it was known from only four tiny populations on unprotected private land. Today there are about 32 occurrences; one occurrence in North Carolina has been extirpated and five others there had no specimens found at the most recent survey.

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