Mollugo verticillata

Green carpetweed

Family: Molluginaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Green carpetweed is a naturalized annual found in California's Central Valley and Southeastern Great Basin in moist, exposed areas such as wetland margins, roadsides, and disturbed fields at elevations below 1,000 meters. Flowering from May to November, this plant produces small white flowers in clusters of 2 to 6 blossoms. Growing as a mat-forming plant less than 50 centimeters in diameter, it spreads with unequally forked stems that create a low, sprawling ground cover. Its leaves grow in whorls of 3 to 8, measuring 5 to 40 millimeters long, creating delicate green clusters along the stems. The fruit is ovoid-ellipsoid, containing dark or red-brown seeds that contribute to its widespread distribution.

Habitat: Common. Moist, exposed, disturbed wetland margins, roadsides, fields

Bloom period: May-Nov

Elevation: < 1000 m

Bioregions: CA-FP, SNE

California counties: Contra Costa, Tulare, Lake, Riverside, Orange, Stanislaus, Amador, Butte, Siskiyou, Los Angeles, Solano, Santa Barbara, Fresno, Tuolumne, Santa Clara, San Joaquin, El Dorado, Sacramento, Glenn, Sonoma, Kern, Mono, Tehama, Mendocino, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Merced, Marin, Colusa, Humboldt, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Nevada, Placer, Sutter, Trinity, Yuba, Shasta, Napa, Plumas, San Diego, Modoc, Monterey, Santa Cruz, Yolo

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