Kodachrome Bladderpod
A silver-leaved mustard with bright yellow flowers survives on a tiny set of gypsum-derived soils near Utah’s Kodachrome country.
Artwork inspired by V. Douglas Snow
Kodachrome Bladderpod forms low silvery cushions with yellow four-petaled flowers and inflated fruits. It is tied to a narrowly distributed soil chemistry and landscape, so apparently similar nearby ground may not function as habitat.
Use a zoom lens, never collect seed or pods, and avoid sharing precise coordinates. Soil disturbance, invasive plants, and a tiny range make casual trampling consequential. View gypsum habitat only from established public routes; pale crust and rare plants are easily damaged underfoot.
- Range
- Small Kane County area
- Soil
- Gypsum-derived
- Status
- Federally endangered
Quick guide
- Leaves
- Dense hairs create a silvery mound
- Flowers
- Four yellow petals mark the mustard family
Recognize Kodachrome Bladderpod from a public route
- Combine mound and flower
- Use a long lens to capture the compact silvery cushion and four-petaled yellow flowers together. A close frame should also preserve the dense pale leaf surface.
- Look for the bladderlike fruit
- When present, photograph inflated pods without collecting them. Compare flowers, leaves, and fruit with a Utah rare-plant reference rather than naming any yellow mustard from color alone.
- Record Kane County gypsum
- Show the gypsum-rich badland soil and sparse surrounding vegetation from the established public route. The plant’s tiny Utah range makes substrate context unusually important.
- Keep pale crust untracked
- Do not wander toward a plant, follow social-media coordinates, pick flowers, or remove pods and seed. Use only current land-manager guidance for legal observation points.
Good to know
The common name invites visitors to associate the plant with a scenic park, but its legal habitat and accessible observation points should come only from current land-manager guidance. Never search by wandering across pale biological crust.
Notice these
- Silvery cushion
- Yellow four-petal flowers
- Inflated seed pods