Sabulina douglasii

Douglas' stitchwort

Family: Caryophyllaceae · Type: annual · Native

Douglas' stitchwort is a California native annual found in northwestern California, the Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, central Coast Ranges, central western California, southwestern California, and Modoc Plateau in rocky and sandy slopes within chaparral, oak, and pine woodlands, often on serpentine soils at elevations of 100 to 1,800 meters. Flowering from spring to early summer, this delicate plant produces small white flowers with petals slightly longer than the sepals. Growing 4 to 30 centimeters tall with erect to spreading stems that are finely glandular-hairy and can be green or purple, it develops from a thread-like taproot. Its leaves are extremely narrow, thread-like, 5 to 30 millimeters long and approximately 0.3 millimeters wide, becoming curled and flexible as they grow. The tiny reddish-brown seeds are 1.3 to 2 millimeters long with a thin, wing-like margin.

Habitat: Rocky, sandy slopes, flats in chaparral, oak and pine woodland, often serpentine

Bloom period: Spring-early summer

Elevation: 100-1800 m

Bioregions: NW, CaR, SNF, c SNH, GV, CW, SW, MP

California counties: Mendocino, Humboldt, Kern, Ventura, Tuolumne, Stanislaus, Colusa, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Fresno, Tulare, Riverside, Alameda, Butte, Contra Costa, Lake, Madera, Marin, Mariposa, Modoc, Monterey, Napa, Nevada, Orange, Placer, San Benito, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Solano, Sonoma, Tehama, Trinity, Amador, Calaveras, Del Norte, El Dorado, Glenn, Merced, Plumas, Sutter, Yuba, San Francisco, Lassen, Yolo

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