Frangula purshiana

Cascara, Cascara

Family: Rhamnaceae · Type: shrub · Native

Cascara is a native shrub found in western North American forests and mountain woodlands at elevations of 500 to 1,500 meters. Flowering from March to June, this plant produces small white to greenish flowers in clusters less than 25 flowers long. Growing with distinctive gray bark and green to reddish-brown twigs, it reaches heights of 3 to 6 meters with an open, spreading growth habit. Its deciduous leaves are widely elliptical, 8 to 15 centimeters long, with prominent veins and edges that may be entire or slightly toothed, ranging from green to blue-gray in color. The fruit is a small black three-stoned drupe approximately 5 to 10 millimeters in diameter.

California counties: Humboldt, Plumas, Mendocino, Siskiyou, Trinity, Del Norte, Sierra, Shasta, Calaveras, Butte, Monterey, Lake, Ventura, Nevada, Glenn, Sonoma, Tehama, Marin, San Luis Obispo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Mateo, El Dorado, Placer, Orange

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