Eryngium spinosepalum

Spiny-sepaled button-celery

Family: Apiaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Conservation status: CNPS 1B.2

Spiny-sepaled button-celery is a rare (CNPS 1B.2) California native perennial found in southern Sierra Nevada foothills and San Joaquin Valley in vernal pools, swales, and roadside ditches at elevations of 100 to 1,270 meters. Flowering from April to July, this plant produces white flowers in dense, spheric heads 0.8 to 2 centimeters wide with distinctive spiny bracts. Growing with erect, stout stems 30 to 75 centimeters tall that branch about 2 to 5 centimeters above the basal rosette, it has a robust and architectural form. Its leaves are large and complex, with oblong to oblanceolate blades 9 to 35 centimeters long that are pinnately lobed and significantly longer than their short petioles. The fruit is a small, narrowly elliptic structure 2.5 to 3 millimeters long, covered in dense, unequal scales.

Habitat: Vernal pools, swales, roadside ditches

Bloom period: Apr-Jul

Elevation: 100-1270 m

Bioregions: s SNF, SnJV.

California counties: Fresno, Tulare, Monterey, Merced, Kern, San Luis Obispo, Contra Costa, Stanislaus, Madera

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