Montia chamissoi

Toad lily, Toad Lily

Family: Montiaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Toad lily is a California native perennial found in the Klamath Ranges, northern Coast Ranges, Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges, and Great Basin in wet meadows, seeps, and sandy or loamy soil at elevations of 1,100 to 3,700 meters. Flowering from June to August, this plant produces delicate pink or white flowers 5 to 9 millimeters long. Growing with prostrate to erect stems 2 to 30 centimeters tall, it forms tufted or matted colonies with leafy stolons and pink overwintering bulblets. Its opposite leaves are oblanceolate, measuring 5 to 50 millimeters long, often creating dense ground cover. The plant produces small spherical fruits 1 to 1.5 millimeters long, with low rounded seed tubercles.

Habitat: Wet, sandy or loamy soil, seeps, wet meadows

Bloom period: Jun-Aug

Elevation: 1100-3700 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoRH, CaR, SNH, TR, PR, GB

California counties: San Bernardino, Ventura, Tulare, Inyo, Mono, Tehama, Fresno, Calaveras, Glenn, Kern, Lassen, Madera, Mariposa, Mendocino, Modoc, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Riverside, San Diego, Shasta, Siskiyou, Trinity, Tuolumne, Butte, Alpine, El Dorado, Sierra, Amador, Lake, Humboldt

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