Native plant identification key for the
Palos Verdes Peninsula, California


Leaves deltoid (like an equilateral triangle, with the base of the triangle at the base of the leaf and the apex at the leaf's tip) to wide ovate (egg-shaped, with the widest part near the base, in this case, very near the base). The base is nearly truncate (seemingly cut off in a straight line) or cordate (indented at the petiole like a heart). Margins are palmately lobed and crenate (round toothed), serrated (saw-toothed, teeth pointing forward toward the tip), or dentate (toothed without the forward inclination). Leaves are ~1-4 cm long. Leaves are white tomentose (woolly), glandular (resinous/sticky), and have a short petiole. Veins diverge in a palmate pattern of 3 main veins, but the midrib one is a little more prominent, and there is pinnate veining of smaller branch veins off from these 3 main veins. Flowerheads are discoid composite flowers, ~1-1.5 cm long, with nothing but disk flowers, which are creamy yellow-white to pinkish in color. The flowerheads are wrapped in tight green or purplish involucres (fused whorl of bracts that looks like a calyx on a simple flower), the phyllaries (bracts) divided into 3-5 stringy lobes, forming a fringe, giving the whole flowerhead a sheathed cylindrical or tubular appearance, ~1.2-1.4 cm long. The disks radiate out from the end (looks kind of like a little anemone). Inflorescences are at the end of stems, forming small, tightly packed, leafy, panicles (branched spike-like clusters), with flowerheads clustered along short lateral axillary branchlets (looking like dense whorls or fascicles of flowerheads at leaf junctions). Strong pleasant fragrance at night. Flowers from August through October. Fruit an achene (small hard single seed in a dry fruit) ~3 mm long with a pappus (modified sepals) or bristly fringe coming out its top, rather like a dandelion's achene. Plant forms a densely branched shrub with a woody base, ranging from ~0.5-1.5 m in height. Found in a variety of dry habitats and vegetation types under 2700 m in the Coast, Transverse, and Peninsular ranges, the Channel Islands, the Sierra Nevada and its foothills, the western foothills of the Cascades, the San Joaquin Valley, and the Mojave and Colorado deserts. Its range extends out to Idaho, Colorado, Texas, and northern Mexico.

Brickellia californica (Asteraceae aka Compositae): brickellbush or California brickellbush or California brickellia


First placed on web: 08/08/11
Last revised: 08/08/11
Christine M. Rodrigue, Ph.D., Department of Geography, California State University, Long Beach, CA 90840-1101
rodrigue@csulb.edu

The development of this key was partially funded through the Geoscience Diversity Enhancement Program (Award #0703798) and through a course of re-assigned time provided by the CSULB Scholarly and Creative Activities Committee. Thanks also to the students in sections of biogeography, introductory physical geography, GDEP, and LSAMP for "test-driving" various editions of this key.