Native plant identification key for the
Palos Verdes Peninsula, California


Leaves cordate (heart-shaped, with the petiole attaching in the cleft) to orbicular (round), ~ 1-3 cm in diameter and length, palmately veined and lobed into ~5 sections, each with crenate teeth. The leaves are green and glabrous on petioles approximately as long as the leaf diameters. The leaves are typically clustered along short lateral branchlets. The inflorescences are racemes (flower clusters with flowers on pedicels themselves pinnately arranged along a central axis). The racemes attach to stems in the axils or angles between the stems and leafy branchlets. There are usually only about 1-3 flowers per inflorescence, and these hang below the branches. The flowers are quite distinctive, forming a layer-cake like structure with the hypanthium (inferior ovary forming a floral tube below the petals and the sepals) topping the hanging flower, followed by the green-white to bright red sepals, which are recurved back on themselves and, thus, point upward. The petals hang below the sepals, forming a skirt-like cylinder of white partially fused petals. Exserted a little below the "hem" of petals is a column of parallel white stamens, with their yellowish anthers (pollen-bearing structures) forming another short ring. Exserted through the center of this ring of anthers is the stigma of the pistil. Blooms January through March. Fruit is an edible spiny red berry ~1 cm in diameter, which, despite the spines, is much sought after by birds. Plant is a shrub ~1-2 m in height, somewhat less wide. Stems grow erect, and leaf and branch nodes often sport 3 spines up to 1.5 cm long, though the stems between the nodes are generally glabrous (smooth-surfaced) and spine-free. The plant favors chaparral, woodlands, and openings in forests and is found in the Coastal Ranges, western and central Transverse Ranges, and the western Peninsular Ranges of California below 1000 m.

Ribes californicum aka Grossularia californica (Grossulariaceae): California gooseberry or hillside gooseberry


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.