Epilobium ciliatum Raf. ssp. ciliatum.   Epilobium adenocaulon var. parishii                                                                            =E. californicum                                                                                         Onagraceae (Evening Primrose Family)                                                                                                 Native   Green Willow-Herb        Northern Willow-Herb

                                     June  Photo

Plant Characteristics: Perennial, flowering the first year, innovations by fleshy rosettes; stem erect, 3-10 dm. tall, glabrous below with some hair on decurrent lines below the nodes, simple or weakly branched below, freely branched above; lvs. glabrous or nearly so, ovate to elliptic-lanceolate, 3-6 cm. long, acute to obtuse, serrulate, rounded into very short flat petioles, upper lvs. gradually reduced, +/- pubescent; infl. with a whitish, +/- appressed pubescence; sepals 2 mm. long; petals white to pink, 2-4 mm. long; fruiting pedicels 3-8 mm. long; caps. slender, +/- reddish, 4-6 cm. long with gland-tipped hairs, glabrate in age; seeds obovoid, abruptly short beaked, ca. 1 mm. long, longitudinally ridged and rounded papillose.

Habitat:  Wet places mostly below 6000 ft.; many Plant Communities; common in cismontane s. Calif.; to n. Calif. and B.C.; occasional on deserts.  Munz, Flora So. Calif. does not list bloom period for this variation.

Name:  Greek, epi-, upon and lobon, a capsule, as the flower and capsule appear together.  Adenocaulon refers to the small depressions on the stem. (Dale 143).

General:  Occasional in the study area.  Found most often along Back Bay Dr. at the north end of Eastbluff.  Photographed in that location.  (my comments).     The young shoots and leaves of E. angustifolium are eaten and the older shoots used to make tea.  Smaller species of Epilobium have been used by foragers in the same way.  (Clarke 43-45).  Over 100 species, cosmopolitan except for tropics.  (Munz, Flora So. Calif. 605).    

Text Ref:  Abrams, Vol. III 179; Collins 94; Hickman, Ed. 796; Mason 607; Munz, Calif. Flora 932; Munz, Flora So. Calif. 605; Roberts 30.

Photo Ref:  June 7 83 # 11A; May 3 84 # 15; June-July 87 # 3.

Identity: by R. De Ruff, confirmed by F. Roberts.

First Found:  June 1983.

Computer Ref:  Plant Data 88.

Have plant specimen.

Last edit 11/20/04.  

                     May Photo                                                      June Photo