Neokochia americana

Green Molly

Family: Chenopodiaceae · Type: shrub · Native

Green molly is a California native shrub found in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert bioregions on alkaline soils, dry lake margins, and flats at elevations of 600 to 2,200 meters. Flowering from May to August, this plant produces white flowers with fan-shaped wings in small axillary clusters. Growing as a root-sprouting subshrub 8 to 40 centimeters tall, it emerges with multiple stems from the base, ascending to erect and typically covered in fine white woolly hair. Its leaves are fleshy, overlapping, and roughly cylindrical to flat, measuring 5 to 20 millimeters long and 1 to 2 millimeters wide. The fruit is less than 4 millimeters wide, with calyx lobes generally white and woolly.

Habitat: Alkaline soils, flats, dry lake margins

Bloom period: May-Aug

Elevation: 600-2200 m

Bioregions: GB, DMoj

California counties: Modoc, San Bernardino, Inyo, Fresno, Mono, Lassen, Los Angeles

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