Vascular Plants of California
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Platystemon californicus

CREAM CUPS

Higher Taxonomy

Family: Papaveraceae

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Dichotomous Key

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)

Previous taxon: Platystemon
Next taxon: Romneya

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 December 03, 2024.

Citation for the whole project: Jepson Flora Project (eds.) 2024, Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/, accessed on December 03, 2024.

Platystemon californicus

Platystemon californicus

More photos of Platystemon californicus
in CalPhotos

Geographic subdivisions for Platystemon californicus:
CA-FP, w D

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(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 occurrence).

Data provided by the participants of the Consortium of California Herbaria.

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CCH collections by month Flowering-Fruiting Monthly Counts

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).

Platystemon californicus CREAM CUPS

Platystemon californicus

CREAM CUPS