Our Plants (List)

The big sagebrush is most common in California on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada. From there it extends into the Great Basin, where it becomes quite common. It avoids our coastal mountains until Santa Barbara County where the Transverse Ranges touch the coast. It occurs in coastal scrub…

Wild ginger is found in shady, moist settings from Santa Clara County to British Columbia. The rounded, heart-shaped leaves creep along the ground as the plant spreads by rhizomes. An unusual, tri-tipped flower – usually maroon – forms close to the ground but is usually obscured by the foliage. Once…

California milkweed thrives hot, dry, mountainous sites from the Diablo Range south into Baja. The gray fuzzy leaves are an obvious adaptation to these arid settings. California milkweed’s silvery stems and leaves grow along the ground then turn upward before producing striking magenta flowers. The combination makes for one of…

Heart leaf milkweed grows in mountainous regions throughout much of California. The waxy, lanceolate foliage are rounded and clasping at the base, forming the heart shape for which the plant is named. The stems are generally upright to about three feet tall and will expand from year to year as…

The Kotolo milkweed grows in dry areas in California’s coastal mountains from Mendocino County south into Baja. It also occurs in the lower foothills surrounding the Central Valley. It is one of those plants which surrounds the SF Bay Area without being native to it. It generally grows as an…

This milkweed is the most widespread of California’s fourteen native species. Only the deserts of the southeast manage to exclude it. This is my local milkweed with a few patches growing within a twenty minute walk from my home in West San Jose. Narrowleaf milkweed grows as a patch of…

The showy milkweed is widespread in North America, native to about half the forty eight contiguous states and western Canada. It grows in a wide range of plant communities, including wetlands. In California it grows in much of the northern half of the state. Showy milkweed emerges from (complete) dormancy…

See Symphiotrichum chilensis ‘Pt. St. George’ California aster

See Symphiotrichum chilensis ‘Puple haze’ California aster