Marah horrida

Sierra man-root

Family: Cucurbitaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Sierra man-root is a California native perennial found in central Sierra Nevada Foothills and Tehama County in shrubby open areas at elevations below 1,000 meters. Flowering from March to April, this plant produces white flowers more than 8 millimeters wide, deeply cup-shaped and conspicuous. Growing with sprawling vines that can extend several meters, it develops a robust, prickly stems and tendrils. Its leaves are variable, with rough textured surfaces supporting the plant's distinctive "horrida" name, suggesting its spiny, tangled growth habit. The fruit is particularly notable, developing into large oblong structures 9 to 20 centimeters long, densely covered with stiff, unhooked prickles and containing 6 to 16 large seeds.

Habitat: shrubby open areas

Bloom period: Mar-Apr

Elevation: < 1000 m

Bioregions: c&amps SNF, Teh.

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