Physaria arctica(Wormsk. ex Hornem.) O'Kane & Al-Shehbaz

arctic bladderpod

WFO wfo-0001266208 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Physaria arctica, photographed by Syd Cannings
fig. a Syd Cannings, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-06-14 / obs. 139986045
Physaria arctica, photographed by Syd Cannings
fig. b Syd Cannings, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 137698134
Physaria arctica, photographed by John W. Hancock
fig. c John W. Hancock, CC0 1.0 / obs. 103396960
Physaria arctica, photographed by Syd Cannings
fig. d Syd Cannings, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 47279995
Physaria arctica, photographed by Todd Boland
fig. e Todd Boland, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 112234797
Physaria arctica, photographed by Rob Foster
fig. f Rob Foster, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 32272878
Physaria arctica, photographed by Syd Cannings
fig. g Syd Cannings, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 137402535
Physaria arctica, photographed by Syd Cannings
fig. h Syd Cannings, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 18749099

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Where it actually grows measured, from 175 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -36.1 °C -24.8 °C -11.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 4.3 °C 14.1 °C 18.6 °C
Annual rainfall 197 mm 471 mm 1,373 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 22 mm 52 mm 273 mm

It is found where winters are arctic. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 175 research-grade observations of Physaria arctica that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 8 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Alyssum arcticum Wormsk. ex Hornem.
  • Alyssum cretaceum Adams
  • Lesquerella arctica (Wormsk. ex Hornem.) S.Watson
  • Lesquerella purshii Fernald
  • Ptilotrichum cretaceum (Adams) Ledeb.
  • Vesicaria arctica (Wormsk. ex Hornem.) Richardson
  • Vesicaria arctica var. leiocarpa Trautv.
  • Vesicaria leiocarpa (Trautv.) N.Busch

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol LEAR2. public domain. Retrieved 2026-07-13.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite. It has no native range either: Kew's checklist does not cover this taxon.