Ivesia santolinoides

Mousetail ivesia

Family: Rosaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Mousetail ivesia is a California native perennial found in the Sierra Nevada, Transverse Ranges, and San Jacinto Mountains on bare granite ledges and sandy places at elevations of 1,500 to 3,600 meters. Flowering from June to September, this plant produces delicate white flowers 5 to 8 millimeters wide in open clusters with up to 200 individual blooms. Growing with erect silvery stems 15 to 40 centimeters tall, it forms a dense, tufted plant with a branching caudex. Its distinctive leaves are mousetail-like, featuring 60 to 80 tiny leaflet lobes on each side, each less than 1.5 millimeters long and ranging from obovate to round. The fruit is approximately 2 millimeters long, with a smooth surface mottled in gray-brown.

Habitat: Bare places, sandy, granite ledges

Bloom period: Jun-Sep

Elevation: 1500-3600 m

Bioregions: SNH, TR, SnJt.

California counties: Fresno, Mariposa, Kern, Inyo, Calaveras, El Dorado, Mono, Madera, San Bernardino, Alpine, Tulare, Tuolumne, Riverside, Los Angeles, Ventura, Amador

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