Rhododendron occidentale

California azalea, California Azalea

Family: Ericaceae · Type: shrub · Native

California azalea is a native shrub found in northwestern California, the Cascade Range, northern Sierra Nevada, Sierra Nevada, Great Valley, Central Coast, San Francisco Bay Area, northern Santa Cruz Mountains, and Peninsular Ranges in streambanks, ocean bluffs, moist wooded slopes, canyon bottoms, and serpentine ridges at elevations up to 2,700 meters. Flowering from April to August, this shrub produces white to pink to salmon-colored flowers with yellow or orange blotches on the upper petal, arranged in compact clusters of 3 to 15 blooms. Growing up to 8 meters tall with densely branched stems covered in sparse to dense hairs, it forms a multi-stemmed, spreading structure. Its deciduous leaves are 3.5 to 8.2 centimeters long with ciliate margins, creating a delicate green backdrop for the showy flowers. The fruit develops longer than wide, splitting open from tip to base and containing ovate to fusiform seeds.

Habitat: Streambanks, ocean bluffs, moist wooded slopes and canyon bottoms, serpentine ridges

Bloom period: Apr-Aug

Elevation: < 2700 m

Bioregions: NW (exc NCoRH), CaRH, n SNF, SNH, GV, CCo, SnFrB, n SCoRI, PR

California counties: Mendocino, San Diego, Riverside, Placer, Lake, Del Norte, Napa, Tuolumne, Madera, Sonoma, Nevada, Siskiyou, Tulare, San Bernardino, Santa Cruz, Plumas, Humboldt, Sierra, Fresno, El Dorado, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Butte, Calaveras, Marin, Monterey, Yuba, Colusa, Trinity, Shasta, Tehama, San Benito, San Francisco, Mariposa, Kern, Amador, Solano, Mono

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