Common deerweed (Acmispon glaber var. glaber) is a native perennial herb found throughout northern, central, and southern California. It thrives in sandy soils, desert slopes, and washes, at elevations ranging from sea level to 4,900 feet. This adaptable plant is a common sight in coastal sage scrub, chaparral, and open woodland habitats.

Deerweed is a nitrogen-fixing plant, playing a vital role in restoring soil health after wildfires. It blooms profusely from spring to early summer, producing small yellow flowers that turn orange-red as they age. These blooms provide essential nectar for native bees and butterflies. Its slender, wiry stems and small leaves create a soft, airy appearance, making it a good choice for naturalistic garden designs.

This drought-adapted plant thrives in well-drained soils and full sun. It is an important food source for native wildlife and a host plant for several butterfly species, including the endangered El Segundo blue butterfly.

Lotus heermannii is a species of legume known by the common name Heermann's bird's-foot trefoil. It is native to the coastal plains, canyons, and mountains of California and Baja California, where it is known from several types of oceanside and inland habitat. It is a mat-forming perennial herb spreading straight stems along the ground. It is lined with leaves made up of several hairy oval leaflets. The flower cluster is a cluster of 3 to 8 flowers each up to about a centimeter long. The petals are yellow, often with dark lobes. The fruit is a curved, beaked legume pod.

Lotus junceus is a species of legume known by the common name rush deervetch. It is endemic to California, where it is known from the northern and central coast and the coastal mountain ranges. It can be found from beaches inland to serpentine slopes and chaparral. It is a hairy, prostrate or spreading perennial herb lined with leaves each made up of small oval leaflets. The flower cluster bears up 8 yellow pea-like flowers each up to about a centimeter long. The fruit is a small beaked legume. The fruit beak curves a lot, the keel can exceed the wings, the calyces are entirely red sometimes, and the stems can be darker.

Acmispon maritimus is a species of legume known by the common name coastal bird's-foot trefoil. It is native to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, where it grows in many types of mountain, desert, and scrub habitat, not necessarily near the coast. It is an annual herb quite variable in morphology, from petite to bushy, hairless to roughly hairy, and prostrate to erect in form. The slender stems are lined with leaves each made up of pairs of leaflets variable in shape and size. The flower cluster is a small array of 1 to 4 yellow flowers, each up to a centimeter long or so. The elongated flower corolla emerges from a tubular calyx of sepals. The fruit is a fairly straight legume up to 3 centimeters long. Laboratory studies have shown this species, which occurs in wildfire-prone habitat such as chaparral, to have an increased rate of seed germination after exposure to heat.

Lotus hamatus is a species of legume known by the common name San Diego bird's-foot trefoil. It is native to the coastal mountain ranges of California and Baja California, where it grows in various types of scrub and canyon habitat. It is an annual herb taking a spreading or upright form. It is lined with leaves each made up of oval leaflets each about a centimeter long. The flower cluster is a small bunch of red and yellow flowers. Each flower is in a tubular calyx of sepals and is only a few millimeters long. The fruit is a narrow, bent legume pod up to 1.5 centimeters long, including the hooked beak at the tip.

Desert rock pea (Lotus rigidus), is a flowering plant in the family Fabaceae, native to the Mojave Desert in the Southwestern United States and northwest Mexico. It is found between the Colorado River and Death Valley, and south into Baja California. Other names include shrubby deervetch. It is a perennial herbaceous plant growing to 0.5-1.5 meter tall. The leaves are irregularly pinnate or palmate with 3-4 leaflets, 5-15 millimeter long. The flowers are yellow, turning red or purple as they age.

Lotus strigosus is a species of legume known by the common name strigose bird's-foot trefoil. It is native to the southwestern United States and adjacent Mexico, where it is known from many types of habitat, including disturbed areas. This is a prostrate annual herb. It is sometimes roughly hairy as its name suggests, but it may be somewhat woolly, fuzzy, or nearly hairless as well. Its slender branches are lined with leaves each made of several small leaflets. The flower cluster bears one or two yellow to orange or red pealike flowers, each with a corolla one half to one centimeter across. The fruit is a legume pod 1 to 3 centimeters long.

Acmispon wrangelianus is a species of legume known by the common names Chilean bird's-foot trefoil and Chile lotus. It is native to California, where it is widespread, and parts of adjacent states. Despite its common name, it is not from Chile. It can be found in many types of habitat, including disturbed areas. This is a hairy, prostrate annual herb. Its slender branches are lined with leaves each made of generally four small leaflets. The inflorescence is composed of a solitary yellow pealike flower around a centimeter wide. The fruit is a legume pod 1 to 2 centimeters long.

Aconitum columbianum is a species of flowering plant in the buttercup family known by the common names Columbian monkshood or western monkshood. This wildflower is native to western North America where it grows in moist areas. It is a spindly, twining perennial plant with lobed or toothed leaves and long stems with far-spaced flowers. The folded, wrinkly flowers are often deep blue or purple, but may also be white or yellowish, and they usually have a spur. The fruits are pod-like follicles. Like other monkshoods, this plant is poisonous.

Aconogonon davisiae is a species of flowering plant in the knotweed family known by the common name Davis' knotweed. Aconogonon davisiae is native to the western United States from Washington, Oregon, and central and northern California (northern Coast Ranges and northern Sierra Nevada). There are also isolated populations in central Idaho It grows in high mountain habitat, such as talus and fellfields. Aconogonon davisiae is a perennial herb producing a decumbent or upright stem from a woody caudex, growing to a maximum erect height near 40 centimeters (3 feet). The leaves are oval and pointed or widely-lance-shaped to somewhat triangular, yellowish or pale green and waxy, slightly hairy, or smooth in texture. At the base of each leaf is a thin reddish sheath formed from the leaf's stipules which is known as the ochrea. Flowers occur in clusters of 2 to 5 in the leaf axils. The flowers are yellowish, greenish, or purple-tinged and just a few millimeters wide.

Aconogonon phytolaccifolium is a species of flowering plant in the knotweed family known by the common name Poke knotweed . Aconogonon phytolaccifolium is native to the western United States: California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Idaho, and Montana. Aconogonon phytolaccifolium is a perennial herb up to 200 cm (79 in) tall. The lance-shaped or pointed oval leaves are 10 to 20 centimeters long and borne on petioles. The leaves have large stipules which form reddish ochrea up to 3 centimetres (1. 2 inches) long. The inflorescence is a long array of branching cluster of many white or greenish flowers. Each flower is about 4 millimetres (0. 16 inches) wide and has tiny protruding stamens tipped with yellow or pink anthers.

Acourtia microcephala is a species of flowering plant in the daisy family known by the common name sacapellote. It is native to southern California and Baja California, where it grows in woodland and chaparral, especially in the coastal mountain ranges. Acourtia microcephala is a bushy perennial herb producing several erect stems from a woody caudex up to about 1. 5 meters in maximum height. The stems branch toward the ends and are densely foliated in toothed, wavy-edged, glandular leaves 2 to 15 centimeters long. The stems and leaves are sticky with exudate. The inflorescences contain clusters of many flower heads, each cylindrical head wrapped in long, flat glandular phyllaries. The flower heads are discoid, containing only disc florets and no ray florets. Each disc floret has two lips, the outer of which is long, flat, and usually bright pink, and easily mistaken for a ligule. The fruit is a glandular achene a few millimeters long which has a pappus of bristles up to a centimeter in length.

Adelinia grandis (formerly Cynoglossum grande) is a species of flowering plant in the borage family known by the common name Pacific hound's tongue. It is native to western North America from British Columbia to California, where it grows in shady areas in woodland and chaparral. On the forest floor of California oak woodlands typical plant associates are Calochortus luteus, Delphinium variegatum and Calochortus amabilis.It is a perennial herb producing an erect stem 30 to 90 centimeters tall from a taproot. The leaves are mostly located around the base of the plant, each with an oval blade up to 15 centimeters long held on a petiole. The flower cluster is a panicle of flowers on individual pedicels. Each five-lobed flower is bright to deep blue with white appendages at the center. It is 1 to 1.5 centimeters wide. The fruit is an array of four slightly bristly nutlets.

Adenophyllum cooperi (Cooper's dyssodia, Cooper's glandweed), is a North American species of perennial flowering plants in the sunflower family. It is, native to the Mojave Desert in the southwestern United States, in the States of California, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. Adenophyllum cooperi grows to 35-60 cm tall. The leaves are 6-20 cm long, obovate, with a lobed or coarsely toothed margin. The flowers are yellow to orange-red.

Adenophyllum porophylloides is a species of flowering plant in the daisy family known by the common names San Felipe dogweed and San Felipe dyssodia. It is native to the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts of the southwestern United States (Arizona, California, Nevada) and northwestern Mexico (Sonora, Baja California, Baja California Sur). Adenophyllum porophylloides is an aromatic desert subshrub with several branching stems reaching a maximum height near 60 centimeters. The sparse, clawlike leaves are divided into sharply pointed linear lobes that bear prominent resin glands. The foliage has an unpleasant scent. The inflorescence is borne on a peduncle several centimeters long. The flower head is cylindrical and lined with phyllaries with large resin glands on them. The tip of the head blooms with bright yellow to reddish orange disc florets. There are sometimes short, stubby yellow to reddish ray florets along the rim. The fruit is an achene about 5 millimeters long with a bristly, scaly pappus.

Chamise, or Greasewood, (Adenostoma fasciculatum), a member of the Rose family, is a flowering plant native to California and northern Baja California. This shrub is one of the most widespread plants of the chaparral biome, sometimes forming monotypic stands.

Chamise is an evergreen shrub with dry-looking stick-like branches. The leaves are quite small, sprouting in clusters from the branches. Its leaves are shiny with flammable oils, especially in warmer weather. Chamise is said to be highly flammable but can be more fire-resistant with occasional watering. The branches terminate in bunches of white tubular flowers.

Chamise is one of the best plants for anchoring a slope and resisting erosion, due to its wide-spreading and deeply-penetrating roots. In maturity, it develops a large burl from which it will resprout after fire or severe pruning. In the wild, it is the host plant of a common root parasite, Chaparral Broomrape.

There are three recognized varieties of this plant. Adenostoma fasciculatum var. fasciculatum is found throughout the range of the species. Adenostoma fasciculatum var. obtusifolium is found only in San Diego and Orange Counties. Adenostoma fasciculatum var. prostratum, a low-growing form, is found primarily on the northern Channel Islands. A cultivar known as 'Black Diamond' (Adenostoma fasciculatum 'Black Diamond') is popular and widely available.

Horticultural selection from Adenostoma fasciculatum from Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve in the san Francisco Bay Area near Concord. Tolerates almost any soil type. Selected for use in the garden. Cuttings from Black Diamond Mines Regional park (Contra Costa County).

Tolerates almost any soil type. Selected for the garden from san Nicolas Island by Tree of Life Nursery.

Grows best in sandy, coarse-grained or other fast draining soil. Selected for the garden.

This Prostrate Chamise is a horticultural cultivar of the widespread native Adenostoma fasciculatum (Chamise) from San Nicolas Island in Southern California, that was selected and introduced by Tree of Life Nursery in 1979.

This is a dense mounding ground cover shrub, 1-3 ft. high and spreading 3-5 ft. It has dense heather-like dark green foliage, which can be an attractive contrast to lighter green or gray foliage of surrounding plants. It has white flowers in spring to summer.

San Nicolas Prostrate Chamise is recommended for parkway median strips, slopes, rock gardens, or containers. It grows in full to part sun, is very drought tolerant, and can handle no summer water once established.
A wider spreading cultivar, also with the common name Prostrate Chamise, is Adenostoma fasciculatum 'Nicolas'.

Tolerates almost any soil type. Selection from santa Cruz Island.

Chamise (Adenostoma fasciculatum var. fasciculatum) is a native tree or shrub that grows in southern and central California. It tends to grow at elevations from 0-5200 feet.

San Diego Chamise (Adenostoma fasciculatum var. obtusifolium) is a native tree or shrub that grows in southern California. It tends to grow at elevations from 0-5200 feet.

Adenostoma sparsifolium (Redshanks or less commonly, Ribbonwood) is a multi-trunked tree or shrub in the Rosaceae (Rose) family that is native to dry inland slopes or chaparral of Southern California and northern Baja California below 6,000 ft. Shaggy falling shanks or ribbons of bark are one of the strongest characteristics of the tree, hence the common names. Redshanks are closely related to the more abundant Chamise (Adenostoma fasciculatum). Members of this genus are very deep rooted and important slope stabilizers. The foliage is feather-like, allowing the trunk and main branches to show through. The flowers are small but attractive. The fruit is an achene which is valued by small birds. Red Shank is an attractive garden tree, especially when planted in a small grouping.

California Buckeye (also known as California Horse-chestnut) is a large shrub or small tree. It is typically multi-trunked and spreads out, with a crown as broad as it is high. California Buckeye is a species in the Sapindaceae family that is endemic to California; it is the only buckeye native to the state.

California Buckeye has gray bark that is often coated with lichens or mosses. It has dark green leaves that can be prone to damage from both spring freezing or snow and summer heat. It tends to leaf out in early spring, followed by creamy-white to pale pink-flower spikes. Some say the flowers resemble candles from afar and butterflies love them!

It has large, shiny round nut-like fruit that appear in late summer and drop in late fall to early winter. Be careful when using this plant in the garden, because all parts of the fruits are toxic.

This plant is very drought tolerant and does well on dry slopes, but looks better with some water. Native (white-flowered) varieties seem to have lower water requirements and are tolerant of recycled water.

Horticultural selection from Aesculus californica.

Tolerates almost any soil type. Selection for the garden.

Agastache parvifolia is a species of flowering plant in the mint family known by the common name small-leaf giant hyssop. It is endemic to far northern California, where it grows in woodlands. It is an uncommon species and is sometimes considered a local subspecies of Agastache urticifolia. This is an aromatic perennial herb producing an erect stem with triangular serrated leaves on petioles. This species is characterized by leaves under 5 centimeters long and 3. 5 wide. The inflorescence is a spike occupying the top of the stem. The flowers have pink-tipped green sepals and tubular pink corollas.

Agastache urticifolia is a species of flowering plant in the mint family known by the common name nettle-leaf giant hyssop. It is native to western North America from British Columbia to California to Colorado, where it grows in many habitat types. This is an aromatic perennial herb growing an erect stem with widely spaced leaves, each lance-shaped to nearly triangular and toothed. The leaves are up to 8 centimeters long and 7 wide. The flower cluster is a dense spike of many flowers. Each flower has long sepals tipped with bright purple and tubular corollas in shades of pink and purple. The fruit is a light brown, fuzzy nutlet about 2 millimeters long. The plant was used medicinally by several Native American groups, especially the leaves.

Native to the desert regions of Southern California, Arizona, and Baja California, Desert Agave (Agave deserti) is an iconic plant of the Southwestern landscape. Its low water needs also make it an ideal plant for the waterwise garden.

Desert Agave grows in clusters. The individual plants are rosette-shaped, with long gray-green leaves that have sharp spines at the tips and along the edges. For safety, it is best to plant it away from walkways and other high-traffic areas. Desert Agave is a slow-growing plant. At full maturity, it will send up very tall spikes of yellow flowers. The blooms attract hummingbirds and insects. Individual plants die after blooming, but other plants in the cluster will continue to grow.

Plant Desert Agave in dry, rocky, well-draining soil. It is highly drought adapted, with minimal water needs. It is both heat and cold tolerant, although some species can be sensitive to frost.

Agave deserti var. deserti is a native perennial herb that grows in southern California.

Agave deserti var. simplex is a native perennial herb that grows in southern California.

Coastal agave (Agave shawii), also called Shaw's agave, is a dramatic and distinctive succulent native to coastal Southern California. Its dark green leaves are accented with red spines and grow in a tight rosette shape. Individual plants grow to a large size and produce clusters of smaller offshoots called pups. Coastal agave plants grow for many years before producing clusters of yellow flowers on tall stalks that can reach over 10 ft in height. After flowering, an individual rosette dies, but the pups continue to grow.

Coastal agave attracts insects, hummingbirds and bats during its long fall to spring blooming season. It is a low water plant that does not need supplemental irrigation once established. Plant in full sun in rocky, well draining soil. Coastal agave is a bold statement plant in the garden. Pruning is not normally needed, and gardeners should use caution near the plant as the spines are sharp.

Agave utahensis is a species of agave known by the common name Utah agave. There are two recognized varieties in California, both of which are rare. Agave utahensis is smaller, occurs farther north, at higher elevations, and is more cold tolerant than the other two native agaves in California. Like other agaves, it is armed with formidable spines and flowers after many years of growth, then the plant dies but clonal pups remain. It is found in the high desert mountains of Inyo and San Bernardino Counties. This is a rosette-shaped agave having blue-green sharp-spiked leaves. The raceme flower cluster is very tall, reaching a maximum of four meters. It is generally yellow or yellow-green with bulbous yellow flowers. The fruits are capsules 1 to 3 centimeters long and containing black seed. The plant was used for food and fiber by local Native American peoples such as the Havasupai.

Utah Agave (Agave utahensis var. eborispina) is a rare native perennial herb or shrub that grows in central California. It tends to grow at elevations from 3100-4500 feet.

Nevada Agave (Agave utahensis var. nevadensis) is a rare native perennial herb or shrub in the Agavaceae family. It is one of two recognized varieties of Agave utahensis, both of which are rare. Var. nevadensis is restricted to the desert mountains of eastern San Bernardino County at elevations from 3,000-5,200 feet. Due to its limited distribution, it is included on CNPS list 4.2. Agave utahensis is smaller, occurs farther north, at higher elevations, and is more cold tolerant than the other two native agaves in California. Like other agaves, it is armed with formidable spines and flowers after many years of growth, then the plant dies but clonal pups remain. The inflorescence is 5-13 ft. tall. The flowers are yellow-green and the fruit is a dry capsule.

Ageratina occidentalis is a species of flowering plant in the daisy family known by the common name western snakeroot. It is native to the western United States where it grows in several types of habitat. This is a rhizomatous perennial herb growing fuzzy green or purple stems to a maximum height near 70 centimeters. The hairy leaves are triangular in shape with serrated edges. The flower cluster is a dense cluster of fuzzy flower heads containing long, protruding disc florets in shades of white, pink, and blue. There are no ray florets. The fruit is an achene a few millimeters long with a rough, bristly pappus.