California grasslands are found throughout the Central Valley, the interior valleys of the Coast Ranges, and on terraces along the California coastline, such as in our area. There is much debate about the original species assemblages of these grasslands, each of which was likely unique before the recent massive changes to their composition. Grazing beginning with Spanish colonists, the introduction of annual exotic grasses and other weeds, droughts, and alterations to the fire regimes have all drastically impacted what remains of these plant communities today. Since prehistoric times, these grasslands were likely dominated by perennial bunch grasses such as our state grass, purple needlegrass (Stipa pulchra), combined with a wide diversity of annual and perennial wildflowers. These were managed by Chumash Indians with frequent burning, a practice that encouraged grassland health. Today, the vast majority have been converted to a weedy mix of non-native annual grasses and forbs, resulting in one of the most complete examples of invasion biology on the planet.
Narrow-leaf milkweed
| Asclepias fascicularis | Chumash - ‘okhponush |
| Apocynaceae (dogbane family) | Spanish - algodoncillo de hoja estrecha |
Rhizomatous, herbaceous perennial, 0.3-1.5 m (1-4 ft). Found in grasslands, disturbed areas, and along the coast. The genus is the sole larval host plant for the rapidly-declining monarch butterfly, which lays its eggs on the underside of leaves. Toxins in the latex of the plant render the caterpillars and butterflies inedible to birds.
A related, non-native milkweed called Mexican milkweed, Asclepias currasavica, has orange flowers and is easier to grow in cultivation. Hence, it is widely used to encourage monarchs. However, experts warn against this because the exotic milkweed does not display winter-dormancy like the native A. fascicularis, and thus supports year round visitation and the deadly protozoa called Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (OE) which puts butterflies and their winter roost sites at great risk. From the fibrous stems of milkweeds and the related dogbane, cordage can be made. Some California Indians chewed the bad-tasting, congealed sap of milkweeds as a chewing gum (Timbrook, 2007).
Common sandaster
| Corythrogene filaginifolia | Asteraceae (sunflower family) |
Spindly subshrub, 0.3-1 m (1-3 ft), with many small flowers bearing lavender ray and yellow disc flowers. The leaves are greyish and covered in small, fine hairs. Widely spread throughout California, many local forms, or genotypes, exist, each being unique to its location. The last known plants in the Goleta Valley occurred at the present COSTCO site, and its development would have spelled local extinction for the plant were it not for CCBER’s collection of all existing seed and plant material before construction began.
This action prevented its local extirpation and all plants on campus are descended from that location.
Blue dicks
| Dipterostemon capitatus | Chumash - shikh’ó’n |
| Themidaceae (brodiaea family) | Spanish - cacomite |
Herbaceous perennial herb, 0.3-1 m (1-3 ft), with long, basal leek or garlic-like leaves, blue flowers, and edible bulbs resembling those of garlic underground. While not abundant on campus, we do have naturally occurring populations we are beginning to amplify. These plants bear edible bulbs or corms that have been food for native animals and peoples for millennia.
The Chumash have long developed a relationship with the plant, that includes harvesting the bulbs and reburying the baby bulblets or cormlets (a second, asexual method of reproduction in addition to seed production) for a return harvest. A cautionary, moralistic tale involving blue dicks, coyote, and sharing was taught to children. These bulbs were traditionally cooked in earth ovens, and seem to have been very important indigenous food, perhaps particularly on the Channel Islands. Two other related geophytes also occur in campus in low numbers, dwarf brodiaea (Brodiaea jolonensis), and golden stars (Bloomeria crocea).
California everlasting
| Pseudognaphalium californicum | |
| Asteraceae (sunflower family) | Spanish - gordolobo |
Annual or perennial herb, 0.2-1.2 m (8-48 in), with aromatic leaves and sticky and hairy leaves. The herbs in this genus (formerly Gnaphalium) are colloquially called everlastings, as their flowers lend themselves to dried flower arrangements. In addition to P. californicum, several other native species occur on campus including bioletti, ramosissimum, microcephalum, canescens, beneolens, and stramineum.
Several were noted as being medicinal plants of the Chumash, and bundles have been found in dry cache caves in the interior of Chumash territory (Timbrook, 2007). P. luteoalbum, Jersey cudweed, also occurs on campus, and is introduced.
California poppy
| Eschscholzia californica | Chumash - qupe |
| Spanish - toroza |
Annual or perennial herb, 15-60 cm (6-25 in), with yellow and orange flowers. Eschscholzia californica is our state flower and has a tremendous amount of local genotype variation across California. Our unique coastal form is distinct from the more widely known interior, orange-flowered forms commonly sold at nurseries.
Unfortunately, the widespread sowing of these store-bought cultivars creates unnatural gene flow and eliminates hundreds of thousands of years of local uniqueness and adaptation. Our coastal form is resistant to powdery mildew, while interior forms are highly susceptible to this unsightly disease. This adaptation to tolerate summer fog also allows the coastal form to be a perennial, whereas searing continental heat makes interior forms strictly annuals. It is a strange fact that the sowing of store-bought wildflowers can diminish biodiversity. Chumash lore mentions poppies in many accounts and other California Indians have long histories of using the plant medicinally.
Gum plant
| Grindelia camporum | Chumash - stɨq shi’sha’w (*) |
| Asteraceae (sunflower family) | Spanish - copaiba |
Subshrub, 0.6-1.2 m (2-4 ft), with yellow flowers whose buds are topped with a sticky substance similar in appearance to tacky white glue. Gum plant grows in heavy, often clay soils sometimes near the edges of what remains of vernal pools. The plant has some potential lore regarding use as a bronchodilator for asthma, and even as a poison oak remedy (Timbrook, 2007). Like most yellow-flowered asters, native bees use them frequently.
(*) Note: the Chumash name is Ventureño, no Barbareño name known
Hordeum brachyantherum ssp. californicum
Meadow barley
| Hordeum brachyantherum ssp. brachyantherum | Poaceae (grass family) |
Perennial or annual grass, 20-65 cm (8-25 in), with a compact, green flower with a narrow compressed longish inflorescence with short awns. Usually found in moist soils, near vernal pools, meadows, and other mesic places. It has bluish-green soft foliage. A closely related subspecies, Hordeum brachyantherum ssp. californicum, California barley, typically grows in slightly drier areas and has a shorter, reddish-green flower.
Both grasses are largely out-competed by exotic grasses and other weeds, and often occur right at trail margins where they have less competition. The leaf sheath, the structure that wraps grass stems just below the leaves, is generally glabrous, or hairless, on ssp. brachyantherum, and is densely hairy on ssp. californicum. They are the same genus as the foxtail barleys of Europe, one of which being the ancestor to domestic barley.
Hordeum brachyantherum ssp. brachyantherum
Miniature lupine
| Lupinus bicolor | Chumash - wala’laq’, qlaha’ |
| Fabaceae (pea family) | Spanish - perro, perito |
Annual forb, 8-40 cm (3-16 in), with blue and white flowers. A highly variable species of lupine with many formerly named subspecies and varieties, the taxa is not well defined and is in need of more study. At least two of these forms occur in our area, one being very showy and erect, the other being more prostrate with inconspicuous flowers.
Larger, robust specimens of the former type are easily confused with a similar species that also occurs nearby, Lupinus nanus, the sky lupine. These two species can easily be distinguished by their seeds, with those of bicolor being smaller, glossy and mottled brown, and those of nanus being larger, matte, and tan. The widespread, larger, succulent lupine, Lupinus succulentus, also occurs on campus and has flowers that tend towards being more purple-colored. All are much used by native bees for their pollen and nectar. This species and their family are nitrogen fixers, capable of taking unusable atmospheric nitrogen and converting it into a type plants can use with the help of symbiotic soil bacteria. Ancient Greeks had them backwards and thought that they robbed fields of fertility, hence their generic name, Lupinus, after wolves.
Purple needlegrass
| Stipa pulchra | Poaceae (grass family) |
Perennial bunchgrass, 0.3-1.2 m (1-3.5 ft). Our state grass, relatively common in grasslands and among openings in oak woodland and other plant communities along the coast and inland. Roots can extend down several meters, fixing significant carbon in the soil, and plants can live up to or over 200 years. Numerous historical accounts indicate that this plant was formerly far more common, and Chumash burning practices kept stands healthy and vigorous.
Early Spanish accounts reported on the very fine grasses in the Goleta Valley and surrounding tablelands. Although Chumash Indians would have been very familiar with this plant, sadly the Chumash names seem to have been lost. Its species name, pulchra, is Latin for beautiful.
Blue-eyed grass
| Sisyrinchium bellum | Chumash - sh’ichkɨ’I’waqaq |
| Iridaceae (iris family) | Spanish - chichiquelite |
Perennial forb, 20-50 cm (8-20 in), displays total summer dormancy unless persistent soil moisture is available. Commonly found in clay soils near low or moist locations, often in grasslands and openings in other plant communities. Like many common names, this one is misleading as the plant is not a grass, has purple, not blue flowers, and has no eyes.
A similar species bearing yellow flowers, Sisyrinchium californicum, is generally restricted to the coastal portions of Northern California.
Clustered tarweed
| Deinandra fasciculata | Chumash - swey |
| Asteraceae (aster family) | Spanish - escoba amarilla |
Annual herb, 0.05-1 m (0.5-3 ft), with densely hairy leaves and many small yellow composite flowers bearing 5 ray flowers. A common sight on coastal pastures where weeds aren’t too prevalent, it blooms in mid to late summer and is a vital resource for both pollinating insects, and seed-eating birds.
Several native California Indian cultures ate the seeds, including the Chumash, although it seems to have almost disappeared from use by John Harrington’s day (Timbrook, 2007). Harrington was the anthropologist who recorded so much valuable information from many Chumash during the early 1900’s. Fairly wide-ranging in California, a related species, Deinandra increscens ssp. increscens, grassland tarweed, reaches its southern limit on the UCSB campus and co-occurs with this species, where they can also form hybrids. The endangered Gaviota tarplant, Deinandra increscens ssp. villosa is usually found slightly up the coast from campus.
Southern tarplant
| Centromadia parryi ssp. australis | Asteraceae (aster family) |
Annual herb, 0.05-1 m (0.5-3 ft), bearing many spine-tipped leaves as the plant matures, especially when fully dried out after dying. A species of concern listed as 1.B.1 by the California Native Plant Society—the same ranking given to critically endangered plants such as the Ventura marsh milk-vetch. Centromadia parryi ssp. australis reaches its northernmost limit on the UCSB campus and in Isla Vista, overlapping with the more wide-ranging Deinandra fasciculata and the more northerly occurring Deinandra increscens ssp. increscens.
Several natural hybrids between Southern tarplant and fascicled tarweed have been documented here, despite being in different genera. The natural areas around UCSB are the only place all three species co-occur, and they all form viable hybrids, which is one way speciation can occur.