Plant Characteristics: Perennial shrub to 5-6 dm. Tall, 8-10 dm wide; stiffly and openly branched with brownish pubescent branches; lvs. evergreen, dark green, alternate, thick, oblong, truncate both ends, 4-7 mm. long, < 2 mm. wide, revolute, slightly pubescent above, denser below, crenate with glandular tips; infl. raceme-like with umbellate heads; pedicels 2 x flower clusters; fls. dark cobalt blue in dense clusters to 2 cm. long; pedicel short, pubescent; petals 5, hooded, +/- 2 mm. long; sepals 5, lanceolate-deltate, incurved the same color as the petals, stamens 5, anthers yellow on long filaments; fr. +/- 1.5 mm., deeply 3-lobed, valves crested, seeds 3, smooth < .5 mm wide.

Habitat: Introduced to the upper bay in 2002. Tree of Life Nursery supplied the plants and says that this hybrid is a cross between Ceanothus impressus and Ceanothus papillosus var. roweanus. with a ? after the second parent. The hybrid was introduced by Kent Taylor in 1971. The habitat of C. impressus is dry sand mesas and slopes below 200 m., in the central coast; the habitat of C. papillosus var. roweanus is open, dry +/- slopes 600-1200 m. in the Coast Ranges, Transverse Ranges, north west Peninsular Ranges (Orange County).

Name: Greek, keanothus, name used by Dioscorides for some spiny plant. (Munz, Flora So. Calif. 732). Latin, impressus, impressed. (Jaeger 126). Possibly referring to the impressive flowers? (my comment). Latin, papilla, pimple. (Jaeger 182). The leaves of C. papillosus are papillose on the upper surface. (my comment). Roweanus is a reference to a person, however I am unable to determine his name from my lists of names of men in whose honor commemorative names have been given. (my comment).

General: In 2002, Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano supplied several hundred one gallon plants to the County of Orange for planting along the westerly bluff edge and mesa of the upper Newport Bay. Fifty of these plants were Ceanothus ‘Dark Star’; of the fifty plants put in the ground, only two or three are still alive. The plants were planted in March or April after the rainy season was over and were watered during the first summer and possibly the second as well. Many of the plants including the Ceanothus are not plants that were ever found around the upper bay, their habitat being either farther north or higher up and it is therefore surprising that even a few of them have survived. (my comments). Ceanothus species hybridize freely. There are 45 species of temperate North America especially in the west. Named hybrids are not recognized in the 1993 Jepson Manual and hybrid forms may not key adequately. (Hickman, Ed. 932). The Sunset New Western Garden Book, 1984 edition lists 28 Ceanothus hybrids and comments that Ceanothus plants do not live very long, typically 5-10 years. (Sunset Editors 227).

Text Ref: Hickman, Ed. 932; Munz, Flora So. Calif. 732; Sunset New Western Garden Book, 1984. 227.

Photo Ref: Oct.-March 05-06 # 11,12,13.

Identity: Confirmed by R. De Ruff.

First Found: Spring 2002.

Have plant specimen.

Computer Ref: Plant Data 560.

Last edit: 6/27/06.