Acaena californica

California acaena

Family: Rosaceae · Type: perennial · Native

California acaena is a California native perennial found in southern North Coast, Central Coast, western San Francisco Bay, and southern Coastal Range bioregions in coastal grassland and open rocky slopes at elevations of 50 to 400 meters. Flowering from March to May, this plant produces small purple-black flowers in dense spikes 10 to 20 millimeters wide. Growing with stems 10 to 60 centimeters tall and 3 to 5 millimeters in diameter, it forms spreading clusters with distinctive branching. Its compound leaves have 5 to 8 leaflets on each side, each leaflet pinnately dissected into 3 to 8 narrow lance-linear segments approximately 4 to 15 millimeters long. The fruit develops with a ridged obovate hypanthium body bearing multiple prickles, with the longest prickles generally 1 to 3 millimeters in length.

Habitat: Coastal grassland, open, rocky slopes

Bloom period: Mar-May

Elevation: 50-400 m

Bioregions: s NCo, CCo, w SnFrB, SCoR.

California counties: San Mateo, Sonoma, San Francisco, Marin, Monterey, Tulare, San Luis Obispo, Contra Costa, Mendocino, San Benito, Santa Cruz, Alameda, Santa Barbara, Solano, Napa

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.