Spergularia rubra

Red sand-spurrey, Red Sand-Spurrey

Family: Caryophyllaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Red sand-spurrey is a naturalized perennial herb found in northwestern California, northern and central Sierra Nevada, central Valley, central and southern coastal regions, and desert mountains in open forests, gravelly glades, meadows, and disturbed areas at elevations below 2,400 meters. Flowering from spring to fall, this delicate plant produces pink flowers with white-tipped lanceolate stipules and glandular-hairy inflorescences. Growing with slender stems less than 0.5 millimeters in diameter, it forms low, spreading clusters with barely fleshy leaves. Its leaves grow in small clusters of two to four per axil, with conspicuous white, shiny stipules that have long-pointed tips. The small fruits measure 3.5 to 5 millimeters long, containing reddish-brown seeds with a distinctive worm-like surface texture.

Habitat: Open forest, gravelly glades, meadows, mud flats, disturbed areas

Bloom period: Spring-fall

Elevation: < 2400 m

Bioregions: NW, CaR, c SNF, n&ampc SNH, ScV, CW, SCo, SnGb, PR, DMtns

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

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