Suaeda esteroa

Estuary seablite

Family: Chenopodiaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Conservation status: CNPS 1B.2

Estuary seablite is a rare (CNPS 1B.2) California native perennial found in southern coastal California in coastal salt marshes at elevations below 5 meters. Flowering from May to October, this plant produces green to reddish flowers in small clusters of 3 to 5 blooms, each flower about 1.5 to 3.5 millimeters long. Growing 1 to 6 decimeters tall with decumbent to erect stems that are generally glaucous and straw-colored, the plant has distinctive ascending branches that tend to exfoliate. Its leaves are lance-linear, ascending, and sessile, with distal leaves less than 60 millimeters long, overlapping and ranging from green to reddish and often covered in a bluish-white glaucous coating. The seeds are distinctive, ranging from 1 to 2 millimeters long and varying from shiny black to reddish or dull brown in color.

Habitat: Coastal salt marshes

Bloom period: May-Oct

Elevation: < 5 m

Bioregions: SCo

California counties: Orange, San Diego, Ventura, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara

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