Amaranthus albus

Tumbleweed, Tumbleweed

Family: Amaranthaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Tumbleweed is a naturalized annual found in California's disturbed areas, roadsides, riverbanks, and agricultural fields at elevations below 2,500 meters. Flowering from June to October, this plant produces small green flowers in axillary clusters with delicate white-woolly branches. Growing prostrate to erect with multiple branches up to one meter tall, it spreads widely across disturbed landscapes. Its leaves are elliptic to obovate, with base wedge-shaped and margins slightly wavy, typically 40 to 80 millimeters long and 15 to 30 millimeters wide. The fruit is a small ellipsoid capsule that splits circumscissile, releasing smooth, shiny red-brown seeds about one millimeter long.

Habitat: Disturbed areas, roadsides, riverbanks, sandy places, agricultural fields

Bloom period: Jun-Oct

Elevation: < 2500 m

Bioregions: CA

California counties: San Bernardino, Ventura, Kern, El Dorado, San Diego, Fresno, Santa Clara, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Inyo, Monterey, Orange, Riverside, Alameda, Amador, Butte, Lake, Sonoma, Nevada, Contra Costa, Tulare, Merced, Imperial, San Francisco, San Mateo, Plumas, Tehama, San Luis Obispo, Mariposa, Mono, Stanislaus, Glenn, Calaveras, Sutter, San Joaquin, Sacramento, Colusa, Placer, Modoc, Solano, Yolo, Lassen, Yuba, Sierra, Napa, Madera, Marin, Trinity, Siskiyou, Humboldt, Mendocino, Santa Cruz

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