Aesculus californica

California buckeye, California Buckeye

Family: Sapindaceae · Type: shrub · Native

California buckeye is a native shrub found in central and northern California mountains, Coast Ranges, Central Valley foothills, and Transverse Ranges in dry slopes, canyons, and stream borders at elevations below 1,700 meters. Flowering from May to June, this plant produces white to pale rose flowers in erect panicle-like clusters with conspicuous orange-anthered stamens extending beyond the petals. Growing as a broad, rounded shrub 4 to 12 meters tall, it develops a distinctive branching structure with spreading limbs. Its leaves are compound with 5 to 7 lance-oblong leaflets 6 to 17 centimeters long, finely serrated with pointed tips. The fruit is a large rounded capsule 5 to 8 centimeters in diameter, typically containing a single glossy brown seed 2 to 5 centimeters long.

Habitat: dry slopes, canyons, borders of streams

Bloom period: May-Jun(Aug)

Elevation: < 1700 m

Bioregions: c&amps NW, s CaR, SNF, n&ampc SNH, Teh, GV (scattered near foothills), n&ampc CW, WTR, sw DMoj

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

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