Cerastium arvense subsp. strictum

Field mouse-ear chickweed, Field Mouse-Ear Chickweed

Family: Caryophyllaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Field mouse-ear chickweed is a California native perennial found in the Klamath Ranges, central Sierra Nevada Foothills, northern Sierra Nevada, and San Francisco Bay Area in moist seeps, shaded areas, and rocky or sandy slopes at elevations of 600 to 1,850 meters. Flowering in spring, this plant produces white flowers with delicate petals 7.5 to 9 millimeters long, emerging from glandular-hairy calyxes. Growing 5 to 20 centimeters tall with both mat-forming and erect stems, it has a distinctive growth pattern of non-flowering and flowering stems. Its leaves are linear or lanceolate, 8 to 25 millimeters long, with notable axillary leaf clusters especially near the base of the plant. The plant produces distinctive fruits 7.5 to 11 millimeters long, with small seeds about 1 to 1.2 millimeters in size.

Habitat: Moist seeps, shaded areas, grassy, generally rocky or sandy slopes

Bloom period: Spring

Elevation: 600-1850 m

Bioregions: KR, c SNF, n&ampc SNH, SnFrB

California counties: Tuolumne, Mendocino, Siskiyou, Marin, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Mariposa, Sonoma, Monterey, Trinity, Humboldt, Solano

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