Sanicula crassicaulis

Gamble weed

Family: Apiaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Gamble weed is a California native perennial found in northwestern California, southern Sierra Nevada, Sutter Buttes, central and southwestern coastal regions in open slopes, ravines, and woodland at elevations below 1,500 meters. Flowering from March to May, this plant produces yellow flowers in small clustered heads with distinctive bisexual and staminate flowers. Growing robustly with stout stems 24 to 120 centimeters tall, it develops a strong taproot with an upright, substantial structure. Its leaves are generally palmate or palmate-ternate with three to five broadly obovate lobes, typically 3 to 12 centimeters wide, featuring finely sharp-serrated margins with teeth about 1 millimeter long. The fruit is small and round, 2 to 5 millimeters long, covered with stout, bulbous-based prickles that give the plant a distinctive textured appearance.

Habitat: Open slopes, ravines, woodland

Bloom period: Mar-May

Elevation: < 1500 m

Bioregions: NW, SNF, s SNH, ScV (Sutter Buttes), CW, SW

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

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