Ceanothus cuneatus |
Ceanothus perplexans |
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buck brush, common buckbrush, narrow-leaf buckthorn, sedge-leaf buckthorn, wedgeleaf cuneatus |
cupped leaf ceanothus, desert ceanothus |
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Habit | Shrubs, 0.5–3.5 m. Stems erect, ascending, or spreading, not rooting at nodes; branchlets grayish brown to brown, rigid or flexible, glabrate, puberulent, or tomentulose, hairs straight. | Shrubs, 1–2 m. Stems erect, not rooting at nodes; branchlets brown to grayish brown, rigid, glabrate or tomentulose, glabrescent. | ||||||||||||
Leaves | usually both fascicled and not fascicled on same plant, rarely none fascicled; petiole 1–3 mm; blade flat to cupped, elliptic, oblanceolate, obovate, or orbiculate, 4–22(–30) × 3–12(–22) mm, base rounded, margins thick, not revolute, entire or denticulate distal to middle, teeth 0–9, apex obtuse, rounded, truncate, or retuse, abaxial surface pale green, glabrate or glabrous, adaxial surface green, glabrous. |
not fascicled; petiole 1–3 mm; blade flat to ± cupped, elliptic, widely obovate, or suborbiculate, 10–20 × 7–18 mm, base rounded, margins thick, not revolute, usually sharply denticulate, sometimes weakly denticulate to almost entire, teeth 7–15, apex rounded to ± truncate, abaxial surface pale green to yellowish green, puberulent, hairs curly, glabrescent, adaxial surface green to yellowish green, sparsely puberulent, hairs curly, glabrescent. |
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Inflorescences | axillary or terminal, 0.8–2.5 cm. |
axillary, 0.7–2 cm. |
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Flowers | sepals, petals, and nectary white to lavender or blue. |
sepals and petals white to cream; nectary yellow to green. |
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Capsules | 4–6 mm wide, weakly lobed; valves smooth, horns subapical, prominent, erect, intermediate ridges absent. |
4–6 mm wide, usually not, sometimes weakly, lobed; valves smooth, horns lateral, usually minute, sometimes absent, spreading, intermediate ridges absent. |
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2n | = 24. |
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Ceanothus cuneatus |
Ceanothus perplexans |
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Phenology | Flowering Jan–Apr. | |||||||||||||
Habitat | Granitic or metamorphic substrates, rocky slopes, ridges, alluvial fans, chaparral, montane shrublands, pinyon and/or juniper and montane conifer woodlands. | |||||||||||||
Elevation | 500–1900 m. (1600–6200 ft.) | |||||||||||||
Distribution |
CA; OR; nw Mexico
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AZ; CA; Mexico (Baja California)
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Discussion | Varieties 4 (4 in the flora). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Ceanothus perplexans occurs in southwestern Arizona, on the desert slopes of the San Bernardino Mountains and Peninsular Ranges of southern California, and in Baja California. Ceanothus specimens from Guadalupe Island, Baja California, with entire or weakly denticulate leaf margins have been referred to either C. crassifolius or C. cuneatus, but in their leaf shape and indumentum they more closely resemble C. perplexans. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 12, p. 99. | FNA vol. 12, p. 107. | ||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Rhamnaceae > Ceanothus > subg. Cerastes | Rhamnaceae > Ceanothus > subg. Cerastes | ||||||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||||||
Synonyms | Rhamnus cuneata | C. greggii var. perplexans | ||||||||||||
Name authority | (Hooker) Nuttall: in J. Torrey and A. Gray, Fl. N. Amer. 1: 267. (1838) | Trelease: in A. Gray et al., Syn. Fl. N. Amer. 1(1,2): 417. (1897) | ||||||||||||
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