Dysphania ambrosioides

Mexican tea

Family: Chenopodiaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Mexican tea is a naturalized perennial found in the California Floristic Province in disturbed places at elevations below 1,400 meters. Flowering from July to September, this plant produces tiny green flowers clustered in spheric terminal and axillary spikes. Growing with erect stems 25 to 130 centimeters tall that are glabrous or gland-dotted, it develops a robust and spreading habit. Its leaves are distinctively glandular, with blades 15 to 100 millimeters long, ranging from ovate to lance-oblong and featuring entire to coarsely dentate edges. The fruit is small, approximately 0.5 millimeters in diameter, with a glandular wall and containing smooth, red-brown seeds.

Habitat: Disturbed places

Bloom period: Jul-Sep

Elevation: < 1400 m

Bioregions: CA-FP

California counties: Kern, Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, San Joaquin, San Diego, Riverside, Marin, San Luis Obispo, Butte, Monterey, Plumas, Glenn, Tehama, Colusa, Yuba, Modoc, Merced, Mendocino, Contra Costa, Yolo, Trinity, Del Norte, Humboldt, Sutter, Lassen, San Mateo, Madera, Alameda, Sonoma, Sacramento, Santa Clara, Siskiyou, Stanislaus, Tuolumne, Fresno, Napa, San Francisco, Orange, Santa Cruz

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