Lomatium californicum

California lomatium

Family: Apiaceae · Type: perennial · Native

California lomatium is a native perennial found in the Klamath Ranges, northern Coast Ranges, southern Sierra Nevada, Tehachapi, San Francisco Bay Area, southern Coast Ranges, and western Transverse Ranges in woodland and brushy slopes at elevations of 150 to 1,800 meters. Flowering from April to June, this plant produces bright yellow flowers in compound umbels with 8 to 20 rays forming a broad disk at the base. Growing 30 to 120 centimeters tall with a stout taproot and glaucous, glabrous stems, it develops a fibrous base with few cauline leaves. Its large, triangular-ovate leaves are 1 to 3 decimeters wide, divided into 1 to 2 ternate-pinnate sections with 2 to 5 centimeter leaflets that have three major lobes, each coarsely toothed or divided. The fruit is an oblong-ovate to elliptic structure 10 to 15 millimeters long with thickened wings and 3 to 4 oil tubes per rib-interval.

Habitat: Woodland, brushy slopes

Bloom period: Apr-Jun

Elevation: 150-1800 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoR, s SNH, Teh, SnFrB, SCoR, WTR

California counties: San Luis Obispo, Kern, Napa, Ventura, Alameda, Sonoma, Colusa, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Monterey, Trinity, Siskiyou, Los Angeles, Lake, Humboldt, San Benito, Yolo, Solano, Marin, Tehama, Mendocino, Shasta, Contra Costa, Placer, San Diego, Del Norte, Sutter, San Francisco, Fresno

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