Stellaria media

Common chickweed

Family: Caryophyllaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Common chickweed is a naturalized annual herb found in northwestern California, the high Cascade Range, northern Sierra Nevada, Sierra Nevada foothills, Central Valley, Central Coast, San Francisco Bay Area, southern California coast, Channel Islands, and desert regions in oak woodlands, meadows, and disturbed areas at elevations below 1,500 meters. Flowering from February to September, this plant produces small white flowers with delicate petals about two-thirds the length of its sepals. Growing with prostrate to erect stems 7 to 50 centimeters tall, it spreads across the ground with a slender taproot and distinctive line of hairs between stem internodes. Its leaves are approximately evenly spaced, ovate-shaped, 8 to 45 millimeters long, with margins that are flat, shiny, and often fringed with fine hairs near the base. The seed is dark red-brown to brown, small and rounded, measuring 0.9 to 1.3 millimeters in size.

Habitat: Oak woodland, meadows, disturbed areas

Bloom period: Feb-Sep

Elevation: < 1500 m

Bioregions: NW, CaRH, n&ampc SNF, n SNH, GV, CCo, SnFrB, SCo, ChI, DSon

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

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