Whipplea modesta

Modesty

Family: Hydrangeaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Modesty is a California native perennial herb found in the northwestern California, San Francisco Bay Area, and Santa Lucia Range in coastal scrub, chaparral, and forest habitats at elevations of 45 to 1,525 meters. Flowering from March to July, this plant produces delicate white flowers 4 to 6 millimeters wide in small clusters of 4 to 12 blossoms. Growing with decumbent stems featuring distinctive gray-brown bark that peels in narrow strips, it forms a low, spreading groundcover. Its leaves are persistent and sessile, with ovate to elliptic blades 1.5 to 4 centimeters long, covered in stiff ascending hairs with bulbous bases. The fruit develops as a segmented spherical structure, with each chamber containing a single plump, honeycomb-pitted seed.

Habitat: Coastal scrub, chaparral, forest, open areas or on streambanks

Bloom period: Mar-Jul

Elevation: 45-1525 m

Bioregions: NW, SnFrB, SCoRO (Santa Lucia Range)

California counties: Humboldt, Marin, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Mendocino, Siskiyou, Napa, Del Norte, Sonoma, Trinity, Monterey, Plumas, Lake, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Tehama, Solano, San Luis Obispo

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