Montane, subalpine, alpine. Streamsides. Summer.
Cross Mountain Trail, July 8, 2007.

Heartleaf Bittercress abounds along and in mountain streams, and produces extensive and dense patches of lustrous green leaves topped by clusters of brilliant white flowers  --  as shown in the above photographs taken on the Sneffels Highline and Sharkstooth Trails.  Heartleaf Bittercress greenery appears after snow melt, the flowers appear within a few weeks, the plant flowers all summer, and its seed pods provide fun along the trail, for they burst open with a squeeze of the fingers.

"Cardam" is the name given by Greeks thousands of years ago to Cress plants. Latin gives us both "cord" for "heart" (as in "courageous") and "folia" for "leaf" (as in "foliage").

Asa Gray named this species in 1849 from a specimen collected by Augustus Fendler on the "margin of Santa Fe Creek, in the mountains" near Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1847.  (Information and quotation from Intermountain Flora.)  The plant grows in western Canada, down to  northern California and to Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico.

Montane, subalpine, alpine. Streamsides. Summer.
Navajo Lake Trail, July 11, 2005.

The white of Cardamine cordifolia is among the whitest of all white flowers.

Montane, subalpine, alpine. Streamsides. Summer.
Pass Creek Trail, July 27, 2009.

Leaves are tipped with prominent, knobby calluses.

Montane, subalpine, alpine. Streamsides. Summer.
El Diente Trail, August 3, 2009.

Seed pods grow to over two inches long and then explode, flinging seeds in all directions.