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Asterella californica
California asterella is a small, flat, thalloid liverwort (a non-flowering moss-like plant) that forms green rosettes on shaded banks and rocks, not a garden flower. It survives dry summers by going dormant and revives quickly when wet.
Asterella californica is a complex thallic liverwort in the phylum Marchantiophyta. A. californica often grows as colonies of flat rosettes of light green, rigid thalli, with undersides dark wine-red to nearly black. The receptacles are rounded, with four lobes each bearing a single sporangium sheathed by a white tattered skirt. A. californica is dioecious with separate male plants often intermingled with female plants. This species is found throughout California. See Distribution information below. Asterella californica is the commonest species of the three species of Asterella occurring in California; the other two species are A. bolanderi and A. palmeri.
Asterella californica is widespread and common on lightly shaded slopes and banks and around rock outcrops, mostly in oak forest, chaparral on desert scrub, mostly below 3000 feet (but to 7000 feet in San Bernardino County). A. californica occurs throughout the Coast Ranges, western Klamath Ranges, Sacramento Valley, west slope of the Sierra Nevada, coastal Southern California and the Channel Islands, Transverse and Peninsular Ranges, western Colorado Desert; east to Arizona, north to southwestern Oregon, and south to northern Baja California. Growing on mineral soil or among rocks on mineral soil on open or lightly shaded banks.
Bolander's Asterella · Asterella drummondii · Elegant Asterella · Palmer's Asterella · Starworts
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Asterella californica by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
