Ceanothus cuneatus |
Ceanothus spinosus |
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buck brush, common buckbrush, narrow-leaf buckthorn, sedge-leaf buckthorn, wedgeleaf cuneatus |
green-bark ceanothus, redheart |
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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, sometimes arborescent, evergreen, 2–6 m. Stems erect, not rooting at nodes; branchlets green, thorn-tipped or not, round to ± angled in cross section, rigid, glabrous or sparsely puberulent. | ||||||||||||
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 4–7 mm; blade ± cupped, elliptic to oblong, 11–35 × 8–29 mm, base cuneate to rounded, margins entire, apex obtuse to weakly retuse, abaxial surface pale green, not glaucous, sometimes puberulent on midribs, adaxial surface green, shiny, glabrous; pinnately veined. |
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Inflorescences | axillary or terminal, 0.8–2.5 cm. |
axillary, paniclelike, 4–17 cm. |
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Flowers | sepals, petals, and nectary white to lavender or blue. |
sepals, petals, and nectary pale blue to blue. |
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Capsules | 4–6 mm wide, weakly lobed; valves smooth, horns subapical, prominent, erect, intermediate ridges absent. |
4–6 mm wide, not lobed; valves smooth, not conspicuously viscid, not or weakly crested. |
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2n | = 24. |
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Ceanothus cuneatus |
Ceanothus spinosus |
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Phenology | Flowering Jan–May. | |||||||||||||
Habitat | Rocky slopes, coastal sage scrub, chaparral. | |||||||||||||
Elevation | 60–900 m. (200–3000 ft.) | |||||||||||||
Distribution |
CA; OR; nw Mexico
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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.) |
Like Ceanothus incanus, plants of C. spinosus are polymorphic for the presence of thorn-tipped branchlets. Putative hybrids with C. thyrsiflorus and C. oliganthus var. sorediatus have been reported (M. Van Rensselaer and H. McMinn 1944). (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. 86. | ||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Rhamnaceae > Ceanothus > subg. Cerastes | Rhamnaceae > Ceanothus > subg. Ceanothus | ||||||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||||||
Synonyms | Rhamnus cuneata | |||||||||||||
Name authority | (Hooker) Nuttall: in J. Torrey and A. Gray, Fl. N. Amer. 1: 267. (1838) | Nuttall: in J. Torrey and A. Gray, Fl. N. Amer. 1: 267. (1838) | ||||||||||||
Web links |