Flowers can be self or cross pollinated. Any plant rosette that survives the winter will flower, no matter how small. Seed pods, correctly termed a linear silique, begin forming while the flowers are still opening. Each plant can produce an average of over three hundred thirty-five seeds. Seeds ripen and disperse from mid-June until September.
Seeds are dormant upon ripening and require cold stratification to germinate.
Once they have received this cold period, they germinate in incredible numbers, carpeting the area around the mother plants. However, humans and mammals can carry the seed to new places on shoes, clothing, fur and birds eat the seed and distribute it in their droppings. Thousands of them germinate in early spring, whether covered by leaf litter or exposed on open soil. Of these, perhaps ninety-five percent will perish in summer drought. Of the remainder, some will die over winter, leaving about one percent to grow to maturity and flower the next year.