Sedum praealtum

Green cockscomb, greater mexican stonecrop

Family: Crassulaceae · Type: shrub · Not Native

Green cockscomb is a naturalized shrub found in the central California Coast bioregion near the mouth of the San Lorenzo River in Santa Cruz County, occurring on disturbed sites, sunny slopes, cliffs, forest edges, and shady openings at elevations below 400 meters. Flowering from February to June, this plant produces bright yellow flowers with 5 spreading lanceolate petals approximately 6 to 9 millimeters long. Growing with stout and woody stems 50 to 120 centimeters tall, it forms an erect, upright structure without rosettes. Its leaves are strongly flattened, narrowly obovate to elliptic-oblanceolate, 2.4 to 8 centimeters long, with a shiny green surface sometimes marked with red and featuring a truncate base and rounded tip. The plant produces flat-topped to columnar flower clusters and develops mature follicles about 5 to 6 millimeters long that spread outward.

Habitat: Disturbed sites, sunny slopes, cliffs, forest edges, shady openings

Bloom period: Feb-Jun

Elevation: < 400 m

Bioregions: CCo (mouth of San Lorenzo River, Santa Cruz Co.)

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