''Arctostaphylos nummularia'' subsp. ''mendocinoensis'', commonly known as pygmy manzanita, is a subspecies of
manzanita. It is
endemic to
Mendocino County, California and
Sonoma County, California
Sonoma County () is a county (United States), county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, its population was 488,863. Its county seat and largest city is Santa Rosa, California, Santa Rosa. It is to the n ...
, where it is known from only one occurrence in the
pygmy forests along the coastline.
Description
This is a small, mat-forming
shrub
A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...
growing in low mounds less than half a meter tall. It has red, shreddy bark and bristles along its smaller branches. The leaves are dark green, shiny, convex, and hairless, and rarely more than a centimeter long. The
inflorescence is a dense cluster of urn-shaped flowers with four tiny lobes at the mouth. The fruit is a cylindrical
drupe
In botany, a drupe (or stone fruit) is an indehiscent fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin, and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a single shell (the ''pit'', ''stone'', or '' pyrena'') of hardened endocarp with a seed (''kernel'') ...
only a few millimeters long, containing four minute seeds.
References
External links
Jepson Manual TreatmentUSDA Plants ProfilePhoto gallery
nummularia mendocinoensis
Endemic flora of California
Natural history of the California Coast Ranges
Natural history of Mendocino County, California
Natural history of Sonoma County, California
Plants described in 1989
Flora without expected TNC conservation status
{{Ericaceae-stub