Rupertia rigida

Parish's rupertia, Parish's Rupertia

Family: Fabaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Conservation status: CNPS 4.3

Parish's rupertia is a California native perennial ranked 4.3 by CNPS, found in southern California coastal regions, San Bernardino Mountains, and Peninsular Ranges in woodland, chaparral, and lower montane conifer forest at elevations below 2,500 meters. Flowering from May to June, this plant produces small flowers with distinctive golden-brown and red-brown hairy fruits. Growing with erect stems less than 75 centimeters tall with a purple base, it has a woody caudex that supports its delicate structure. Its leaves feature lance-linear stipules and lanceolate leaflets 35 to 65 millimeters long, covered with glands and hairs that are particularly dense on the upper surface. The fruit is an elliptic, golden-brown structure 9 to 13 millimeters long, adorned with red-brown hairs and a beak less than 3 millimeters wide.

Habitat: Woodland, chaparral, lower montane conifer forest

Bloom period: May-Jun

Elevation: < 2500 m

Bioregions: SCo, SnBr, PR

California counties: San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, 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.