Rumex violascens

Mexican dock

Family: Polygonaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Mexican dock is a California native perennial found in the Deltaic Sacramento Valley, San Joaquin Valley, southern coastal, and western desert regions along wet places near streams and rivers at elevations below 1,000 meters. Flowering from March to August, this plant produces small greenish to reddish flowers in interrupted whorls with branches bent at the nodes. Growing 2.5 to 7.5 decimeters tall with a stout, branched stem, it appears robust and somewhat woody. Its leaves are distinctively oblanceolate to elliptic, 6 to 12 centimeters long with entire margins, featuring a widely tapered base and obtuse tip. The fruit develops as a small brown to red-brown structure with three unequal ovoid tubercles, each about one-third the size of the perianth lobe.

Habitat: Uncommon. Wet places along streams, rivers

Bloom period: Mar-Aug

Elevation: < 1000 m

Bioregions: Deltaic ScV, SnJV, SCo, w D, reported from SCoR (Salinas Valley)

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