Ceanothus cyaneus |
Ceanothus pauciflorus |
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lakeside ceanothus, San Diego buckbrush |
desert buckbrush, desert buckthorn, Mojave ceanothus |
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Habit | Shrubs, evergreen, 2–5 m. Stems erect, not rooting at nodes; branchlets light green, not thorn-tipped, angled in cross section, flexible, often tuberculate (tubercles minute, brownish), puberulent, glabrescent. | Shrubs, 0.2–2 m, sometimes moundlike. |
Stems | erect or weakly ascending to spreading, not rooting at nodes; branchlets light gray to ashy gray, rigid, puberulent to tomentulose, hairs curly or wavy, glabrescent. |
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Leaves | petiole 2–6 mm; blade flat, ovate-elliptic, 20–50 × 15–20 mm, base rounded, margins usually denticulate to serrulate, rarely entire, not revolute, teeth 23–58, apex acute to obtuse, abaxial surface pale green, veins puberulent, adaxial surface dark green, glabrous or sparsely puberulent; 3-veined from base. |
not fascicled; petiole (0–)1–3 mm; blade flat to ± cupped, elliptic, oblong-elliptic, obovate, or suborbiculate, 5–15(–20) × 3–14(–15) mm, base cuneate to rounded, margins thick, not revolute, entire or remotely denticulate, teeth 1–5(–7), apex acute to ± truncate, abaxial surface pale green to grayish green, glabrate or puberulent, hairs curly or wavy, glabrescent, adaxial surface grayish green, puberulent, hairs curly or wavy, glabrescent. |
Inflorescences | terminal, paniclelike, 15–30(–40) cm. |
axillary, rarely racemelike, 0.7–3 cm. |
Flowers | sepals, petals, and nectary deep blue. |
sepals and petals white to cream, sometimes pale blue or lavender; nectary yellowish green, brown, or blue. |
Capsules | 3–5 mm wide, deeply lobed; valves smooth, weakly crested. |
3.5–6 mm wide, not, or sometimes weakly, lobed; valves smooth, horns lateral, prominent to minute or absent, spreading, intermediate ridges absent. |
2n | = 24. |
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Ceanothus cyaneus |
Ceanothus pauciflorus |
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Phenology | Flowering Apr–Jun. | Flowering Feb–May. |
Habitat | Rocky or gravelly slopes, chaparral. | Rocky slopes, ridges, alluvial fans, sagebrush and montane shrublands, pinyon and/or juniper and montane conifer woodlands. |
Elevation | 40–600 m. (100–2000 ft.) | 900–2900. |
Distribution |
CA; Mexico (Baja California)
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AZ; CA; NM; NV; TX; UT; n Mexico; c Mexico
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Discussion | Ceanothus cyaneus is known in the flora area only from San Diego County, and is threatened throughout its range. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Ceanothus pauciflorus as circumscribed here includes plants having flat to cupped leaf blades with a sparse to dense but not intertwined indumentum composed of short curly or wavy hairs, at least when young; this indumentum also occurs on the petiole and ultimate branchlets. Such plants in the United States have been treated either as C. greggii or C. vestitus (M. Van Rensselaer and H. McMinn 1942). However, R. McVaugh (1998) and D. O. Burge and K. Zhukovsky (2013) provided evidence that they should be treated as C. pauciflorus. Specimens from the desert slopes of the Sierra Nevada and San Bernardino Mountains, California, and a few scattered localities in western Arizona, have leaves similar in shape and dentation to those of C. perplexans, suggesting local hybridization. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 12, p. 90. | FNA vol. 12, p. 107. |
Parent taxa | Rhamnaceae > Ceanothus > subg. Ceanothus | Rhamnaceae > Ceanothus > subg. Cerastes |
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | C. greggii, C. greggii var. franklinii, C. vestitus | |
Name authority | Eastwood: Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci., ser. 4, 16: 361. (1927) | de Candolle: in A. P. de Candolle and A. L. P. P. de Candolle, Prodr. 2: 33. (1825) |
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