Dimorphotheca fruticosa

Trailing african daisy

Family: Asteraceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Trailing african daisy is a naturalized perennial herb found in coastal California regions including the Central Coast, Southern Coast, and Peninsular Ranges in disturbed places, beaches, and coastal areas at elevations below 200 meters. Flowering from March to July and potentially blooming year-round in cultivation, this plant produces ray flowers with striking pink-purple to rose-purple colors on the front and purple or deep rose-purple on the back, with disk flowers in blue-purple tones. Growing with trailing to ascending stems up to one meter long that root where they contact the ground, it develops sparingly branched stems with a somewhat puberulent and minutely glandular texture. Its leaves range from 4 to 8 centimeters long, with oblanceolate to obovate blades that are relatively fleshy, having proximal wing-petioled leaves and distal nearly sessile leaves that are entire or sparingly dentate. The plant forms large daisy-like flower heads 4 to 7 centimeters in diameter with lance-linear phyllaries 12 to 15 millimeters long.

Habitat: Uncommon. Disturbed places, beaches, coastal areas

Bloom period: Generally Mar-Jul(+- all year in cultivation)

Elevation: < 200 m

Bioregions: CCo, SCo, PR

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