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Home / Browse / Descurainia / Payson's Tansymustard (subsp. paysonii)
iNaturalist — CC, credited & licensed per image
Pictured: Descurainia pinnata — the species. This subspecies isn’t separately illustrated.
Brassicaceae family

Payson's Tansymustard (subsp. paysonii) Descurainia pinnata subsp. paysonii subspecies

Native Specialist-bee host

Payson's Tansymustard (subsp. paysonii) is an annual wildflower native to the lower 48 states. A host for pollen-specialist native bees.

More about this plant

Descurainia pinnata is a species of flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae known by the common names southeastern tansymustard and western tansymustard. It is native to North America, where it is widespread and found in varied habitats. It is especially successful in deserts and dry fields. It is a hardy plant which easily becomes weedy, and can spring up in disturbed, barren sites with bad soil. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Hardiness
≥ zone 6 derived from its U.S. range
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Lifespan
Annual
In the garden
Herb layer — Sits in the herb of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts ~3 caterpillar species

Descurainia supports ~3 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is a modest genus.

Recorded feeding on Descurainia in North America, including:

Anthocharis cethura · Desert Orangetip Anthocharis pima · white / sulphur butterfly Anthocharis sara · Sara Orangetip Euchloe ausonides · Large Marble Euchloe hyantis · California Marble Euchloe olympia · Olympia Marble
+ 6 more species →
Euxoa auxiliaris · Army Cutworm Moth Pieris napi · Green-Veined White Pontia beckerii · Becker's White Pontia occidentalis · Western White Pontia protodice · Checkered White Pontia sisymbrii · Spring White
Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
✦ Bees specialist-bee host

Specialist native bees depend on it.

Some native bees are pollen specialists (oligolectic) — they raise young only on pollen from particular plant genera. Descurainia is a recorded specialist-bee host, so losing it can mean losing the bee that relies on it.

Xerces pollinator conservation →
Specialist hosts from Smith et al. 2024.
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
Sources for this entry (13) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — native status
[06] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[07] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts · Smith et al. 2024 (CC BY)
[08] Conservation rank — NatureServe Explorer (CC BY)
[09] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[11] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[12] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
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PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

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