Euphorbia crenulata

Chinese caps

Family: Euphorbiaceae · Type: annual · Native

Chinese caps is a California native annual found in the California Floristic Province in dry places at elevations below 1,600 meters. Flowering from March to August, this plant produces small clusters of greenish-white cyathia in delicate, leafy-bracted cymose arrangements. Growing with ascending to erect stems 12 to 60 centimeters tall, it develops distinctive elliptic to oblanceolate leaves that are finely crenate along the edges. Its leaves range from 1.5 to 3.5 centimeters long, with proximal leaves alternately arranged and tapering to an obtuse or abruptly pointed tip. The fruit is a small 3 to 3.5 millimeter oblong structure with distinctive net-like textured seeds.

Habitat: Common. Dry places

Bloom period: Mar-Aug

Elevation: < 1600 m

Bioregions: CA-FP

California counties: Los Angeles, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Siskiyou, San Mateo, Placer, Fresno, Nevada, Lake, Orange, Napa, Humboldt, Del Norte, Tuolumne, Santa Barbara, Butte, Santa Clara, Tulare, San Francisco, Contra Costa, Trinity, Riverside, Alameda, Mendocino, Madera, El Dorado, Modoc, Lassen, Colusa, Sierra, Plumas, Solano, Yuba, Tehama, Glenn, Calaveras, Amador, Sonoma, Mariposa, Marin, Ventura, San Diego, Inyo, Sacramento, Yolo

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