Scutellaria mexicana

Bladder-sage, Bladder-Sage

Family: Lamiaceae · Type: shrub · Native

Bladder-sage is a California native shrub found in southern Sierra Nevada and desert regions on sandy to gravelly slopes, washes, and woodland areas at elevations up to 1,900 meters. Flowering from March to June, this plant produces white to light violet and purple flowers with distinctive two-lipped blossoms 15 to 25 millimeters long. Growing 5 to 10 meters tall with a rounded form, the shrub features spreading lateral branches that become rigid with spine-like tips in maturity. Its leaves are small, generally ovate to elliptic, 3 to 15 millimeters long with entire margins, attached to branches by short petioles or nearly sessile. The plant's most distinctive feature is its calyx, which becomes bladder-like and approximately purple in fruit, creating an unusual visual characteristic.

Habitat: Sandy to gravelly slopes, washes, scrub, woodland

Bloom period: Mar-Jun

Elevation: < 1900 m

Bioregions: s SNE, D

California counties: Riverside, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Kern, Inyo, Imperial, San Diego

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