Senna artemisioides

Silver senna

Family: Fabaceae · Type: shrub · Not Native

Silver senna is a naturalized shrub found in southern California regions including the Southern California Coast, San Gabriel Mountains, San Bernardino Mountains, and Desert Sonoran areas in dry, sandy washes and rocky disturbed areas at elevations of 100 to 1,500 meters. Flowering from January to May, this plant produces bright yellow flowers approximately 7 to 10 millimeters long in clustered racemes with 4 to 12 blooms. Growing as a compact shrub less than 2 meters tall with sparse to dense hairy stems, it develops a spreading, unarmed structure. Its leaves feature 6 to 16 narrow linear leaflets, each about 10 to 25 millimeters long and only 1 millimeter wide, arranged on a 5 to 15 millimeter petiole with 1 to 3 small glands. The fruit develops as a flat, straight oblong pod 4 to 8 centimeters long, containing several seeds.

Habitat: Dry, sandy washes to rocky slopes, disturbed areas

Bloom period: Jan-May

Elevation: 100-1500 m

Bioregions: SCo, SnGb, SnBr, DSon

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