Bistorta bistortoides

Western bistort, Western Bistort

Family: Polygonaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Western bistort is a California native perennial found in the northern Coast Ranges and northern eastern Sierra Nevada in wet meadows, streambanks, and alpine slopes at elevations of 1,500 to 3,000 meters. Flowering from July to September, this plant produces white to pale pink flowers in dense spike-like clusters 10 to 40 millimeters long. Growing with erect stems 20 to 70 centimeters tall, it emerges from contorted rhizomes with primarily basal leaves. Its leaves are elliptic to lance-oblong, 4 to 30 centimeters long, with entire margins and a tapered base, typically glaucous with minimal surface hairs. The fruit is a small, shiny, light-brown to olive-brown obovoid seed 3 to 4 millimeters long.

Habitat: Wet meadows, streambanks, alpine slopes

Bloom period: Jul-Sep

Elevation: 1500-3000 m

Bioregions: CA-FP (uncommon in coastal freshwater marshes, 0--20 m, NCo, n CCo), n SNE

California counties: Tulare, Alpine, Mono, San Bernardino, Sonoma, Modoc, Fresno, Amador, Calaveras, Del Norte, Glenn, Inyo, Lake, Nevada, Riverside, Stanislaus, Trinity, Butte, El Dorado, Humboldt, Kern, Lassen, Madera, Marin, Mariposa, Mendocino, Placer, Plumas, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Tehama, Tuolumne

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