Clinopodium douglasii

Yerba buena

Family: Lamiaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Yerba buena is a California native perennial found in northwestern California, northern Sierra Nevada, central western California, and southwestern California in shady places, chaparral, and woodland at elevations below 900 meters. Flowering from April to September, this plant produces white to lavender flowers 3 to 8 millimeters long in small clusters along leaf axils. Growing as a mat-forming herb with slightly woody stems that occasionally root, it spreads to less than one meter wide with sparse, minute recurved hairs. Its leaves are ovate to ovate-triangular, 10 to 35 millimeters long, with shallow crenate-dentate edges and sparse, minute hairs. The small shiny brown fruits are approximately one millimeter long.

Habitat: Shady places, chaparral, woodland

Bloom period: Apr-Sep

Elevation: < 900 m

Bioregions: NW, n SNH, CW, SW

California counties: Humboldt, Los Angeles, Marin, San Mateo, Mendocino, Contra Costa, San Luis Obispo, Napa, Del Norte, Siskiyou, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, Monterey, Ventura, Santa Clara, Sonoma, Alameda

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