Flora of North America species comparison

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Gutierrezia californica

California matchweed, matchweed, San Joaquin snakeweed, snakeweed
Habit Subshrubs, 20–70 cm.
Stems

glabrous or minutely hispidulous.
Leaves

basal absent at flowering;

cauline blades 1-nerved, filiform to linear, 0.5–1(–1.3) mm wide, reduced distally, often reduced in arrays to tiny, curved bracts.
Involucres

turbinate to cylindric-turbinate (longer than diams.), 2.5–4 mm diam.
Ray florets

4–13;

corollas yellow, 2.5–7 mm.
Disc florets

(4–)6–13.
Heads

borne singly or (sometimes subsessile and in clusters of 2–3) in loose arrays.
Cypselae

2–2.8 mm, faces densely strigoso-sericeous;

pappi of 1–2 series of lanceolate to oblanceolate scales 1.5–2.2 mm.
Phyllary

apices flat.
2n

= 16, 24.

Gutierrezia californica
Phenology Flowering Apr–Nov(–Dec).
Habitat Grassland, chaparral, oak woods, alluvium, rocky slopes, sometimes over serpentine
Elevation 100–400 m (300–1300 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
CA; Mexico (Baja California)
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Following D. D. Keck (1960) and M. A. Lane (1985), Gutierrezia californica is treated here as a variable taxon that includes G. divergens. O. T. Solbrig (1965, 1970) considered G. californica to be a narrow endemic restricted to serpentine outcrops of the San Francisco Bay region, in which case the earliest name for the more widely distributed plants, including those of Mexico, is G. divergens Greene. Molecular evidence (Y. Suh and B. B. Simpson 1990) tentatively supports the recognition of the serpentine endemic; more detailed sampling would be needed for an objective decision. The morphologic differences are quantitative and overlapping. Intergrades between G. californica in the broad sense and G. sarothrae are said to occur in California (Lane 1993).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 20, p. 93.
Parent taxa Asteraceae > tribe Astereae > Gutierrezia
Sibling taxa
G. arizonica, G. microcephala, G. petradoria, G. pomariensis, G. sarothrae, G. serotina, G. sphaerocephala, G. texana, G. wrightii
Synonyms Brachyris californica, G. bracteata, G. divergens, Xanthocephalum californicum
Name authority (de Candolle) Torrey & A. Gray: Fl. N. Amer. 2: 193. (1842)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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