Coastal sage scrub, also referred to as soft chaparral, occurs primarily in the dry but foggy coastal zone and inland where the coast’s influential marine layer reaches. Average precipitation throughout the range is 7-17 inches. Shrubs reach an average of 1-2 m (3-6 ft) in height and are often aromatic due to secondary leaf compounds that deter herbivory. These shallow-rooted species are able to capture water from fog, and many respond to seasonal drought by losing some or all of their leaves. Records from early Spanish explorers indicate that portions of this plant community were formerly converted to native grasslands by California Indian burning and by early ranchers clearing brush for grazing lands. Today, with so many new non-native Mediterranean grasses, coastal sage scrub is susceptible to conversion into exotic grasslands when fires are too frequent. This plant community includes familiar species such as California sagebrush and several of the true sages in the genus Salvia. Coastal sage scrub supports a wide variety of wildlife including the state endangered Belding’s savannah sparrow and the coastal California gnatcatcher.
California sagebrush
| Artemisia californica | Chumash - we’wey |
| Asteraceae (sunflower family) | Spanish - romerillo |
Semi-decidious shrub, 0.6-2.5 m (2-8 ft), with aromatic grey-green foliage that dies back in summer, depending on the severity of drought. Abundant in coastal sage scrub communities, this plant smells strongly and is a familiar aroma to many Californians. Chumash Indians used this plant traditionally for arrow construction, fire making, and several purification rituals, and still use it today.
Its continental cousin, Artemisia tridentata, occurs across vast swaths of the west that are removed from the coast, and is the plant that gives the scent known colloquially as “cowboy cologne”.
Mugwort
| Artemisia douglasiana | Chumash - molush |
| Asteraceae (sunflower family) | Spanish - estafiate, yerba ceniza |
Rhizomatous, perennial subshrub, 1-2.5 m (3-8 ft), with leaves that are green on the topside, and whitish underneath. Usually found in coastal sage scrub, oak woodlands, and grasslands in moist settings, such as near creek banks or low places. Traditionally, Chumash Indians used this plant medicinally, placing smoldering cones of the dried leaves on arthritic areas of the body and letting them burn down to the skin (Timbrook, 2007).
Interestingly, a different species of mugwort is used similarly in Traditional Chinese Medicine. It is rumored to encourage vivid dreams when placed under one’s pillow, and is more commonly used today—effective or not—as a remedy or prevention for poison oak dermatitis.
Big saltbush, quailbush
| Atriplex lentiformis | Chumash - ‘I’laq’ |
| Chenopodiaceae (goosefoot family) | Spanish - barbazo, matorral chico |
Shrub, 1-3 m (4-10 ft), sometimes wider than tall, with gray-green triangular leaves. Saltbush can tolerate saline conditions and can occur in uplands or wetlands. Fast growing and common around the coastal bluffs and slough margins. Some California Indians ground the seeds into flour for food, a practice continued today. During the mission period, the ash made from the burned plants was used to make soap.
Pollen records from cores extracted from the Dune Pond at Coal Oil Point Reserve indicate that this plant family was far more abundant during the Chumash era, and that it was largely replaced with Asteraceae pollen, likely from coyote brush (Baccharis pilularis), after the Spanish mandated the cessation of indigenous burning.
Coyote brush
| Baccharis pilularis | |
| Asteraceae (sunflower family) | Spanish - rama china |
Shrub, to 10 ft (3 m). Found mainly in lower elevations but occasionally at the top of the Santa Ynez mountains amongst chaparral. This is one of the area’s most common native plants. It is used by many species of birds and is a common host for the spittle bug and the iridescent-green Baccharis beetle. Dioecious, with separate male and female plants, the females produce copious amounts of wind-dispersed seed usually around August to September.
Santa Ynez Valley Chumash Indians in the 1950s described this plant as the best remedy for poison oak rashes, where boiled plants were applied to the affected skin (Timbrook, 2007). Today, the plant is so common on campus lands and around the Goleta slough that CCBER removes it to maintain grasslands and to increase the diversity of coastal sage scrub.
Female
Male
Jimson weed, toloache
| Datura wrightii | Chumash - momoy |
| Solanaceae (nightshade family) | Spanish - toloache |
Herbaceous perennial, to 1.5 m (4 ft), with eggplant-like leaves and large white to purplish or yellowish funnel-shaped flowers. Foliage is usually dark green with a somewhat unpleasant odor when crushed, which some describe as sickly sweet or similar to peanut butter. Curiously, the scent of plants in this genus has been synthetically recreated in some perfumes. Winter-dormant, the plants emerge from the large fleshy roots each spring and usually flower most abundantly in summer and fall.
They are pollinated by hawk moths and carpenter bees, among others. The moths locate the flowers at night by the unique mix of scented compounds they release. It holds an important place in Chumash and other California Indian cultures as a medicinal and spiritual plant. Common in disturbed areas such as washes, roadsides and agricultural margins, the plant is highly toxic and ingestion in any form may lead to blindness or death.
California sunflower, bush sunflower
| Encelia californica | Asteraceae (sunflower family) |
Shrub, 1-1.5 m (3-5 ft), with yellow ray flowers surrounding reddish-purple disc flowers. Common on bluffs and slopes near the coast. The contrast between dormant, often leafless plants in the summer and fall and the vibrant blooming individuals in the early spring is dramatic. Its seeds resemble small domestic sunflower seeds and are highly sought after by finches and other birds. It is usually a major component of coastal sage scrub on campus.
California fuchsia
| Epilobium canum | Chumash - s’akht’utun ‘iyukhnuts |
| Onagraceae (evening primrose family) | Spanish - balsamillo |
Subshrub, to 1 m (3 ft), often wider than tall in full sun. Whitish, gray- green leaves and red flowers that are pollinated by hummingbirds. Its small, wind-dispersed seeds find their way up steep canyon walls and rocky slopes, where it is sometimes located. The Santa Barbara Chumash name translates to “hummingbird sucks it”, and it has a history of being used to treat cuts and sores, especially among livestock (Timbrook, 2007).
This attractive, drought tolerant native is widely used in native plant landscaping, and several cultivars exist.
Seacliff buckwheat
| Eriogonum parvifolium | Polygonaceae (buckwheat family) |
Low growing shrub, 0.3-1 m (1-3 ft). The upper surfaces of the small leaves are green and glossy while the undersides are whitish and fuzzy. Generally found among dunes, bluffs, and tablelands in coastal sage scrub. Seacliff buckwheat is a member of the most populous genus in Santa Barbara county, Eriogonum, with over 60 species, subspecies, or varieties occurring within its borders, including several island endemics.
Many of these have been widely used in the horticultural trade and in native plant gardens. The genus is heavily used by bees and butterflies. Just away from the fog belt, Eriogonum fasciculatum, California buckwheat, has a broad range, with a smattering of plants on campus lands.
Golden yarrow
| Eriophyllum confertiflorum | Asteraceae (sunflower family) |
Grayish-leaved subshrub, 0.3-1 m (1-3 ft), with rich, cadmium yellow flowers. Among the genotypes across various localities, different forms occur. It is found in coastal sage scrub, chaparral, and sunny breaks in oak woodlands along the coast, islands, and in the interior. Though it can form colonies when it has bare ground for seed to germinate on, invasive non-native grasses and other exotic weeds often prevent this.
When dormant during the dry period, it is leafless and looks lifeless, hugely contrasted by a plant in full bloom. Unfortunately, its flowering period is relatively short-lived.
Coast goldenbush
| Isocoma menziesii | Asteraceae (sunflower family) |
Shrub, 0.3-1.5 m (1-5 ft), with toothed or entire leaf margins that vary considerably with location and varieties. Typically flowering in mid to late summer, it is a valuable nectar source for the wandering skipper, western pygmy blue, and other butterflies. The thick-leaved, prostrate variety, Isocoma menziesii var sedoides, bears foliage reminiscent of a plastic aquarium plant, and occurs almost exclusively along the wind-driven immediate coast.
Over the years, numerous landscaping and revegetation projects in the area have planted non-local Isocoma menziesii, making cross-pollination with local plants likely. Use of non-local plant material like this makes understanding the morphology and genetics of what constitutes the local material more difficult.
Lemonade berry
| Rhus integrifolia | Chumash - walqaqsh |
| Anacardiaceae (sumac family) | Spanish - mangle menor |
Shrub or arborescent shrub, 2.8 m (7-25 ft), usually wider than tall. Specimens in full bloom are often covered in competing California native bees and European honeybees. While the seeds are hard and probably inedible, the surrounding fruit is strongly lemon-flavored and edible. They can be soaked in water to make a lemon-flavored drink and are probably high in vitamin C.
The plant is a major component of coastal sage scrub in some parts of California and is often found on wind-swept bluffs. Common relatives in Southern California include Rhus trilobata, sugarbush, and Malosma laurina, laurel sumac.
Giant rye grass
| Elymus condensatus | Chumash - shtemelel |
| Poaceae (grass family) | Spanish - carrizo |
Perennial, clumping, sometimes weakly rhizomatous grass to 3.5 m (10 ft), second in size among native grasses in California only to Phragmites australis. Usually found along coastal bluffs, hills, and canyons, it has many traditional uses for the Chumash. These include knives, arrow shafts, tobacco pipes, carrying containers, paintbrush handles, medicine, thatching, and more.
This plant responds well to heavy pruning or fires, after which it grows vigorously and displays fresh, green foliage. The Spanish name, carrizo, is the same as that for the common reed, Phragmites australis, whereas the Chumash distinguished between the two species by giving them different names.
Deerweed
| Acmispon glaber | Chumash - ya’i |
| Fabaceae (pea family) | Spanish - escoba de horno |
Bushy subshrub to 0.5m (2 ft), commonly found on stabilized dunes, ocean bluffs, coastal sage scrub, and chaparral, usually in sandier soils. A common fire follower, its flowers are a favorite of many species of native bees, some of which are rare, precious pollinators of critically endangered salt marsh plants.
The flexible stems of deerweed, also called California broom, served as brooms in the mission period for sweeping out ovens and floors, and these brooms were used by at least the Ventura Chumash. The plant was also used to dye the basket plant Juncus textilis black, and the legendary Chumash man, Fernando Librado, said it was the only plant used to thatch sweat lodges, as the green foliage would not burn (Timbrook, 2007).
Malacothrix saxatilis ssp. tenuifolia
Malacothrix saxatilis ssp. saxatilis
Cliff aster
| Malacothrix saxatilis | Asteraceae (sunflower family) |
Herbaceous perennial, to 1.5 m (4 ft), with striking white, dandelion-like flowers. Scattered around coastal bluffs, cliff faces, and canyons. Malacothrix is a large genus with about 25 species, subspecies and varieties. 5 subspecies of Malacothrix saxatilis can be found in Santa Barbara County. The two narrow-leaved varieties tenuifolia and implicata, and the wider, more succulent-leaved variety saxatilis can be found on campus.
Malacothrix saxatilis var. saxatilis is given the CNPS rare plant rank of 4.2 for its limited distribution. It is coveted by many species of bees for its floral resources. The rare dunedelion, Malacothrix incana, formerly occurred around Goleta beach and Goleta slough, as denoted by two collections from 1927, and 1964, respectively.
Sticky monkeyflower
| Diplacus longiflorus | Phrymaceae (lopseed family) |
Shrub, 0.6-1.5 m (2-5 ft), with yellowish, reddish, or orange flowers. The foliage is slender and sticky, an adaptation to reduce desiccation in our arid climate. This plant was formerly called Mimulus aurantiacus. The genus Mimulus has now been divided into three genera, Erythranthe, Mimulus, and Diplacus. Over 20 species within these three genera occur in Santa Barbara County, some rare or endangered.
Sorting out these species is confusing and their understanding is probably incomplete. The flowers of these plants have a bilobed stigma that closes when touched by an insect pollinator. This can be observed in real time when the stigma is gently touched with any object. If no pollen is deposited, the stigma will reopen.
California figwort, california beeplant
| Scrophularia californica | Scrophulariaceae (figwort family) |
Erect herbaceous perennial, 0.6-2 m (2.5-6 ft). Found throughout coastal sage scrub, oak woodland, and chaparral, it is widespread throughout California. Each small reddish-maroon flower contains a drop of very sweet nectar that is highly sought after by hummingbirds and many species of bees, hence one of its common names: beeplant. The flowers develop into a capsule containing many small dark seeds.
A rare, slightly distinct species called Scrophularia atrata may occur in the area, but is more common north of Pt. Conception.
Purple sage
| Salvia leucophylla | Lamiaceae (mint family) |
Woody perennial, 0.5 to 1.5 m (1.5-5 ft), with gray-blue leaves and rose-lavender flowers borne in clusters from May to June. Typically found on dry slopes and coastal bluffs, it ranges from roughly the Bay Area into Baja, but is mostly found from Santa Barbara County southward to San Diego. One of our most well-known and distinctive native plants, it has many forms in cultivation as cultivars, such as the prostrate form from Pt. Sal, where the wind is incessant.
It can be a dominant species in some assemblages of coastal sage scrub and is well used by native bees. Its scientific name, leucophylla, is Greek for white leaves, although its cousin, Salvia apian, bears the common name white sage.