Plantago subnuda

Mexican plantain

Family: Plantaginaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Mexican plantain is a California native perennial found in coastal bioregions including northern Coast, Central Coast, San Francisco Bay, southern Coast, and northern Channel Islands in wet meadows, ditches, coastal bluffs, and marshes at elevations below 300 meters. Flowering from May to September, this plant produces pale flowers in dense cylindric spikes 8 to 30 centimeters long. Growing with stout fibrous roots and erect stems 12 to 40 centimeters tall, it develops a robust caudex. Its leaves are elliptic-oblanceolate, tapering to a wide petiole and ranging from entire to finely toothed, typically 12 to 40 centimeters in length. The plant produces small seeds approximately 1.6 millimeters long, with flowers featuring delicate lanceolate corolla lobes about 3 millimeters long.

Habitat: Wet meadows, ditches, coastal bluffs, marshes

Bloom period: May-Sep

Elevation: < 300 m

Bioregions: NCo, CCo, SnFrB, SCo, n ChI

California counties: Humboldt, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, Sonoma, Orange, Riverside, Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo, Santa Cruz, Napa, Contra Costa, San Francisco, Marin, Monterey, Solano, Mendocino, San Mateo, Del Norte, Alameda, Trinity

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