Ceanothus cuneatus

Buck brush

Family: Rhamnaceae · Type: shrub · Native

Buck brush is a California native shrub found in various bioregions in chaparral and oak woodlands at elevations from 100 to 1,500 meters. Flowering from March to May, this plant produces white to pale blue or lavender flowers in compact clusters about 1 to 2 centimeters long. Growing with ascending to spreading stems 1 to 2 meters tall, it forms an open, mound-like shape with brown to gray-brown twigs. Its evergreen leaves are opposite, elliptic to nearly round, 6 to 30 millimeters long with dull green upper surfaces and paler undersides, featuring entire or slightly toothed margins. The distinctive fruit is roughly 4 to 6 millimeters wide with subtle ridges and tiny hornlike projections.

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

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