FireApproved

United States / Grow / sanddune wallflower

sanddune wallflower (Erysimum capitatum)
Photo: (c) Rachel Stringham, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

sanddune wallflower

Erysimum capitatum · Brassicaceae · all Erysimum records · also called Western wallflower · Wikipedia

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Sanddune wallflower is rated fire resistant, supported by a Colorado ignitability score of nine and a Marin County listing.

Colorado State University Extension and the Colorado State Forest Service publish a 9-out-of-10 score for Erysimum capitatum under the common name western wallflower. Their recommended interval is 8 through 10 for defensible-space Zones 1 and 2. Nine lies inside that interval, providing a direct numerical basis for the favorable assessment.

Fire Safe Marin includes the same taxon among fire-resistant plants common to Marin County. The two sources consequently agree on a favorable direction for this perennial, while expressing their guidance through a score and a plant listing respectively.

Sanddune wallflower belongs to the mustard family and has moderate water needs. Its fire-resistant classification rests on limited primary evidence. A reader comparing plant choices can use the explicit Colorado score and the Marin recommendation without assuming that the score was separately measured in every region where the species occurs.

Form
perennial
Water need
moderate
Rated in
Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; Marin County, California
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions
1 condition stated in cited fire-evidence rows.
Placement evidence
1 source placement record; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; Marin County, California
Typed publication scope: 2 scopes across 2 cited fire sources
  • Ignition-Resistant Landscape Plants (Fact Sheet 6.305) · Official scoped edition
    • CO; partial normalized coverage · 2025-07-01

      Colorado State University Extension and the Colorado State Forest Service publish Fact Sheet 6.305 for Colorado's WUI and varied ecosystems. FireApproved exposes all 114 exact source owners at Colorado publication scope while retaining score, elevation, water, and Idaho-carrier lineage. Publication scope is not suitability for every Colorado site or zone.

  • Fire-Resistant Plants Common to Marin County · Official scoped edition
    • Marin County (CA footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2019-01-01

      The publication is explicitly limited to plants common to Marin County. FireApproved publishes 104 exact owners as Marin regional context while retaining its placement, spacing, irrigation, and maintenance boundary. It is not statewide California guidance or parcel suitability.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, MD, MI, MO, MT, NM, NV, OH, OK, OR, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WI, WV, WY.
Native range
Current cited native range in AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, IA, ID, IL, IN, MO, MT, NM, NV, OH, OK, OR, TN, TX, UT, WA, WY.
Introduced / established
3 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Native and introduced range evidence

These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval. Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.

Current native

21

exact source areas

Current introduced

2

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

21 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Alaska (AK)
  • Arkansas (AR)
  • Arizona (AZ)
  • California (CA)
  • Colorado (CO)
  • Iowa (IA)
  • Idaho (ID)
  • Illinois (IL)
  • Indiana (IN)
  • Missouri (MO)
  • Montana (MT)
  • New Mexico (NM)
  • Nevada (NV)
  • Ohio (OH)
  • Oklahoma (OK)
  • Oregon (OR)
  • Tennessee (TN)
  • Texas (TX)
  • Utah (UT)
  • Washington (WA)
  • Wyoming (WY)
2 introduced source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Maryland (MD)
  • Wisconsin (WI)

The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.

Conditions in the fire evidence

These describe tested or rated plant material. They are not horticultural maintenance instructions.

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Recommends (2)

Corroboration (1 rows from 1 source)
Same genus in the directory · the Erysimum group page

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · Wikipedia · ITIS

Erysimum capitatum (Western wallflower). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/erysimum-capitatum/. Last verified 2026-08-23.