Acmispon tomentosus

Heermann's lotus

Family: Fabaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Heermann's lotus is a California native perennial found in coastal and inland areas of western California in grasslands and chaparral at lower elevations. Flowering from March to June, this plant produces bright yellow flowers with dark red-tipped petals in small clusters of 3 to 8 blooms. Growing with prostrate stems that often form dense mats up to 10 decimeters long, it spreads with soft, spreading hairs especially near the stem tips. Its leaves have 4 to 6 leaflets that are ovate to obovate, ranging from green to silver-gray, with each leaflet measuring 4 to 16 millimeters long. The fruit is a narrow, slightly curved pod about 5 millimeters long with a distinctive 2 to 3 millimeter curved beak.

California counties: Riverside, Monterey, Los Angeles, Tulare, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Marin, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Orange, Santa Barbara

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