Juncus kelloggii

Kellogg's dwarf rush

Family: Juncaceae · Type: annual · Native

Kellogg's dwarf rush is a California native annual found in northern California regions including the North Coast Ranges, Cascade Range Foothills, northern Sierra Nevada Foothill, Sacramento Valley, and Central Western California in damp sandy or clay soils, vernal pools, seeps, fields, and meadows at elevations below 800 meters. This tiny rush produces inconspicuous flowers clustered 1 to 3 per stem, with perianth parts generally reddish in fruit. Growing with hair-like stems just 1 to 6 centimeters tall, it forms dense tufted clusters barely rising above the ground. Its basal leaves are extremely narrow, measuring less than 2.5 centimeters long and only 0.1 to 0.4 millimeters wide. The fruit is obovoid to elliptic, approximately equal in length to the perianth and bearing minute seed appendages.

Habitat: Uncommon. Damp sandy or clay soils, vernal pools, seeps, fields, meadows

Elevation: < 800 m

Bioregions: NCoR, CaRF, n SNF, ScV, CW

California counties: Monterey, Marin, Sonoma, Mendocino, Butte, Tehama, Napa, Lake, Humboldt, Sacramento, Santa Cruz, Shasta, San Bernardino, Mono, San Diego, Santa Clara, Siskiyou, Riverside

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