Menyanthes trifoliata

Bogbean

Family: Menyanthaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Bogbean is a California native perennial found in central coastal, Klamath, California Ranges, Sierra Nevada, and northern coastal regions in ponds, bogs, swamps, wet meadows, and lake margins at elevations of 900 to 3,200 meters. Flowering from May to August, this plant produces white to pink flowers in racemes with funnel-shaped blossoms that have spreading lobes 5 to 8 millimeters long, generally pink-tipped and coarse-hairy inside. Growing with prostrate rhizomes and emerging flower branches, it develops leafy stems with distinctive three-leaflet configurations. Its leaves are basal and alternate, with oblong-obovate leaflets 2 to 12 centimeters long and 1 to 5 centimeters wide, emerging from long petioles that have wing-like stipule margins. The fruit develops as a two-valved, nearly ellipsoid capsule containing compressed, elliptical seeds.

Habitat: Ponds, bogs, swamps, wet meadows, seeps, margins of shallow lakes

Bloom period: May-Aug

Elevation: 900-3200 m

Bioregions: c NCo, KR, CaR, SN (exc Teh), n CCo

California counties: Sierra, Nevada, Plumas, Fresno, Inyo, Tulare, Shasta, El Dorado, Tuolumne, Riverside, Mendocino, Modoc, Santa Cruz, Humboldt, Madera, Marin, Lassen, Siskiyou, Butte, San Francisco, Del Norte, Trinity, Alpine

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