Acmispon brachycarpus

Short podded lotus

Family: Fabaceae · Type: annual · Native

Short podded lotus is a California native annual found in the California Floristic Province and desert regions in grasslands, oak and pine woodlands, and desert flats and mountains at elevations below 1,700 meters. Flowering from March to June, this plant produces yellow flowers that redden with age, with blossoms 5 to 9 millimeters long. Growing with soft-spreading hairs in mat-forming or ascending stems 5 to 40 centimeters tall, it spreads in ashy green or green patches. Its leaves have 4 leaflets, each 4 to 12 millimeters long, typically elliptic to obovate in shape. The fruit is an ascending, dehiscent pod 6 to 12 millimeters long with a slightly bent beak.

Habitat: Abundant. Grassland, oak and pine woodland, desert flats and mountains, roadsides

Bloom period: Mar-Jun

Elevation: < 1700 m

Bioregions: CA-FP, D

California counties: Humboldt, Ventura, Contra Costa, San Bernardino, Tulare, Kern, Los Angeles, San Diego, Colusa, Inyo, Riverside, Amador, Marin, Butte, Shasta, Sonoma, Lake, Glenn, Mendocino, Trinity, Yuba, Fresno, Sutter, Tehama, Merced, Nevada, Siskiyou, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Napa, Santa Barbara, Alameda, Monterey, San Benito, Del Norte, Tuolumne, Madera, El Dorado, Santa Clara, Yolo, Placer, Stanislaus, Solano, San Joaquin, Modoc

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