Arctostaphylos manzanita

Common manzanita

Family: Ericaceae · Type: shrub · Native

Common manzanita is a native shrub found in California's interior mountain ranges in chaparral and woodland habitats at elevations ranging from low to mid-elevation zones. Flowering from January to March, this plant produces pale pink to white urn-shaped flowers in pendulous clusters that contrast beautifully against its smooth, reddish bark. Growing as an erect shrub two to eight meters tall with a distinctive burled base, it develops strong, branching stems that create an elegant structural form. Its leaves are bright green and shiny, broadly ovate to obovate, measuring two and a half to five centimeters long with smooth entire margins and rounded bases. The fruit is a depressed-spheric cluster eight to twelve millimeters wide, typical of manzanita species in the California landscape.

California counties: Humboldt, San Bernardino, Napa, Lake, Calaveras, Sonoma, Mendocino, Butte, Tehama, Tulare, Amador, Tuolumne, Solano, Trinity, Shasta, Siskiyou, Placer, Sutter, Santa Cruz, Plumas, Marin, Colusa, Sacramento, Alameda, Glenn, Del Norte, Yolo, Contra Costa, Fresno, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Stanislaus, El Dorado

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