Eleocharis radicans

Creeping spikerush

Family: Cyperaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Creeping spikerush is a California native perennial found in coastal regions, the North Coast Ranges, Central Valley, Central Coast, and southwestern California in exposed soil, shallow water, streams, marshes, and seeps at elevations of 100 to 1,400 meters. Flowering from spring to winter, this plant produces delicate, colorless to straw-colored flower bracts in small, narrow spikelets. Growing with extremely thin, spongy stems 1 to 12 centimeters tall and weak rhizomes less than half a millimeter in diameter, it forms dense, low-growing clusters. Its leaf sheaths are particularly fragile, often disintegrating and ending in blunt tips, with distinctive three-sided fruits marked by approximately seven longitudinal ridges. The tiny fruit, often nearly white, bears four perianth bristles and measures less than one millimeter wide.

Habitat: Uncommon. Exposed soil or shallow water of shores, streams, marshes, seeps

Bloom period: Spring-winter

Elevation: 100-1400 m

Bioregions: NCo, NCoR, GV, CCo, SW

California counties: Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego, Fresno, Humboldt, Kern, Riverside, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Sonoma, Tehama, Tulare, Tuolumne, Mendocino, Santa Cruz, Napa, Butte, Glenn, Yuba

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