Palmer's seaheath is a small, low, tangling shrub from coastal dunes, beaches and salt marshes of Baja California, Sonora and San Diego County. It grows best in full sun in sandy or saline soil and needs little attention once established.
Family
Frankeniaceae (Frankeni family)
Grows as
Shrub
Light
Full sun
Water
Water sparingly; it tolerates dry conditions and salty soil better than wet roots.
Soil
Sandy or gritty soil with excellent drainage; tolerates salinity.
Temperature
15–35 °C; protect below about 0 °C.
How easy
Moderate
Native range
SW. California to Mexico (N. & C. Baja California, NW. Sonora)
Climate
desert or dry shrubland
About
Frankenia palmeri is a species of flowering plant in the frankenia family, Frankeniaceae, known by the common name Palmer's seaheath, Palmer's frankenia, or yerba reuma. It is native to the coastline of northwestern Mexico, as well as San Diego County, California, in the United States. It is a plant of sand dunes, beaches, alkali flats, and salt marshes, where it thrives due to its adaptation to saline soils. This is a small, tangling shrub less than a meter tall with spreading stems lined with clusters of knobby, fleshy leaves. Toward the ends of branches flowers appear among the leaf clusters. Each flower has white petals 3 or 4 millimeters long, often washed with pink toward the throat and with pink anthers. The plant is becoming increasingly rare as its habitat on valuable coastal land is consumed for development.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Frankenia palmeri 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.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.