Atriplex watsonii

Matscale

Family: Chenopodiaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Matscale is a California native perennial subshrub found in southern Central Coast, southern California coastal, and Channel Islands bioregions on bluffs, sand dunes, salt marshes, and beaches at elevations below 170 meters. Flowering from March to October, this plant produces white-scaly flowers that develop in dense, mat-like clusters. Growing with several prostrate to decumbent stems spreading 5 to 30 centimeters in diameter, it forms a low, wide ground-covering plant. Its thick, fleshy leaves are wide-elliptic to ovate, generally opposite, and measuring 8 to 25 millimeters long. The plant produces small seeds approximately 1 millimeter in size and is typically dioecious, with separate male and female plants.

Habitat: Bluffs, sand dunes, salt marshes, scrub, beaches

Bloom period: Mar-Oct

Elevation: < 170 m

Bioregions: s CCo, SCo, ChI

California counties: San Diego, Orange, Los Angeles, Ventura, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Kern

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