Sherardia arvensis

Field madder, Field Madder

Family: Rubiaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Field madder is a naturalized annual herb found in northern and central California coastal regions, interior valleys, foothills, and San Francisco Bay Area in pastures, disturbed areas, grasslands, and oak woodlands at elevations of 10 to 1,160 meters. Flowering from March to July, this plant produces delicate pink or lavender flowers in small axillary heads with 2 to 3 blooms. Growing as a low, matted plant with decumbent stems 7 to 16 centimeters tall and four-angled branching structure, it spreads horizontally across the ground. Its leaves grow in whorls of 5 to 6, measuring 4 to 13 millimeters long, with lanceolate or oblanceolate shapes and acute or weak-spined tips. The fruit develops as two small nutlets with soft hairs, completing the plant's distinctive low-growing and delicate life cycle.

Habitat: Pastures, disturbed areas, grassland, dry meadows, oak woodland

Bloom period: Mar-Jul

Elevation: 10-1160 m

Bioregions: NCo, NCoRO, NCoRI, CaRF, n SN, ScV, SnFrB, SCoRO, SCo

California counties: Contra Costa, Placer, Humboldt, Mendocino, Yuba, Los Angeles, Marin, Ventura, Butte, Riverside, Sonoma, Santa Clara, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda, Solano, Orange, Santa Cruz, El Dorado, Merced, Fresno, Amador, San Luis Obispo, Tehama, Napa, Del Norte, Nevada, Siskiyou, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Yolo, Colusa, Shasta, Monterey

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