Platystemon californicus

Platystemon californicus CREAM CUPS

Higher Taxonomy

Family: Papaveraceae

Common Name: POPPY FAMILY
Habit: Annual to small tree; sap colorless, yellow, orange, red, or white. Leaf: basal, cauline, or both, simple and entire, toothed, or lobed, or 1--3-pinnate-dissected or compound; cauline generally alternate; stipules 0. Inflorescence: terminal, 1-flowered or cyme, raceme, or panicle; bracts generally present. Flower: bisexual, radial, bilateral, or biradial; sepals 2--3, shed after flower; petals generally 2 × sepals in number; stamens generally many; ovary 1, superior, chamber 1, style 0 or 1, stigmas or lobes 2--many, ovules few to many. Fruit: capsule, dehiscent by valves or pores, +- nut, or breaking transversely into 1-seeded, indehiscent units. Seed: fleshy appendage generally 0.
Genera In Family: 25--30 genera, 200 species: northern temperate, northern tropics; some cultivated (Papaver, Eschscholzia, Hunnemannia), source of opiates. Note: Stylomecon moved to Papaver. Corydalis, Dicentra, Fumaria in Fumariaceae in FNANM, elsewhere. Glaucium flavum Crantz is a waif. According to FNANM (3:300--301), Hunnemannia fumariifolia Sweet (+- like Eschscholzia except sepals free) an occasional waif in California, but documentation evidently lacking. Fleshy appendage of seed sometimes for dispersal by ants.
eFlora Treatment Author: Gary L. Hannan & Curtis Clark, except as noted
Scientific Editor: Thomas J. Rosatti.

Genus: Platystemon

View Description

Etymology: (Greek: wide stamen)
eFlora Treatment Author: Gary L. Hannan

Platystemon californicus Benth.

NATIVE
Habit: Annual 3--30 cm, shaggy-hairy; sap colorless to orange. Leaf: basal and cauline, alternate and whorled, 1--9 cm, linear to lanceolate or narrowly oblong, entire. Inflorescence: axillary and terminal, 1-flowered; peduncle 3.4--26 cm, > leaves. Flower: buds nodding; sepals 3, hairy; petals 6, free, 6--19 mm, narrowly ovate to obovate, cream with yellow base, tip, or both (or all yellow), often persistent after flower; stamens > 12, free, filaments flat; carpels generally 9--18, fused, glabrous to densely long-hairy, separating in fruit. Fruit: 10--16 mm, ovoid to widely linear, generally narrowed between seeds, breaking transversely into 1-seeded, indehiscent units. Seed: 1 mm, elliptic to reniform, smooth, black.
Ecology: Open grassland, sandy soil, burns; Elevation: < 1000 m. Bioregional Distribution: CA-FP, w D; Distribution Outside California: to Oregon, Utah, Arizona, Baja California. Flowering Time: Mar--May Note: Highly variable; further study needed to determine if plants of southern ChI (Santa Barbara Island), described as Platystemon californicus var. ciliatus Dunkle, Santa Barbara Island cream cups, deserve taxonomic recognition.
Synonyms: Platystemon californicus var. ciliatus Dunkle Listed in CNPS Inventory; Platystemon californicus var. crinitus (Greene) Greene; Platystemon californicus var. horridulus (Greene) Jeps.; Platystemon californicus var. nutans Brandegee; Platystemon californicus var. ornithopus (Greene) Munz; Platystemon californicus var. sphaerocarpus Brandegee; Platystemon crinitus Greene
Jepson eFlora Author: Gary L. Hannan
Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)

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Botanical illustration including Platystemon californicus

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Citation for this treatment: Gary L. Hannan 2012, Platystemon californicus, in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=38664, accessed on April 19, 2024.

Citation for the whole project: Jepson Flora Project (eds.) 2024, Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/, accessed on April 19, 2024.

Platystemon californicus

Platystemon californicus

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Geographic subdivisions for Platystemon californicus: CA-FP, w D	MAP CONTROLS 1. You can change the display of the base map layer control box in the upper right-hand corner. 2. County and Jepson Region polygons can be turned off and on using the check boxes.

(Note: any qualifiers in the taxon distribution description, such as 'northern', 'southern', 'adjacent' etc., are not reflected in the map above, and in some cases indication of a taxon in a subdivision is based on a single collection or author-verified occurence).	Data provided by the participants of the Consortium of California Herbaria. MAP LEGEND View all CCH records All markers link to CCH specimen records. The original determination is shown in the popup window. Blue markers indicate specimens that map to one of the expected Jepson geographic subdivisions (see left map). Purple markers indicate specimens collected from a garden, greenhouse, or other non-wild location. Yellow markers indicate records that may provide evidence for eFlora range revision or may have georeferencing or identification issues. READ ABOUT YELLOW FLAGS CCH collections by month Duplicates counted once; synonyms included. Species do not include records of infraspecific taxa, if there are more than 1 infraspecific taxon in CA. Blue line denotes eFlora flowering time (fruiting time in some monocot genera).