*Note: Bold terms can be found in the Vocabulary List inside "RON Plant Facts" .
 
 

1a. Plants that are trees: Go to "Pacific Coast Tree Finder"

1b. Plants that are not trees: Go to 2a
 

2a. Plants that are grasses (leaf structure = blade): Go to 3

2b. Plants that are not grasses: Go to 6
 
 

3a. Grasses that are bunchgrasses  go to 4

3b. Grasses that are not bunchgrasses go to 5
 

4a. Large 2'-10' bunchgrass with razor sharp leaf edges and purple-white tufted seed plumes: Pampas Grass
 
 

4b. Small 3-10" diameter bunchgrass with a needle like awns:

Monterey bunchgrasses include:

• Purple Needle Grass
• California Fescue
• Tuffed hair Grass
• Western Ryegrass

5a. 5'-10' tall bamboo like, rhizome based, with flat leaf blade, found near streams or waterways : Arundo
 
 

6a. Shrub-like plants: Go to 10

6b. Plants that are not shrub-like: Go to 7
 

7a. Plants that creep: Go to 8

7b. Plants that don't creep: Go to 9
 

8a. Creeping, succulent, with purple or yellow flowers: Ice Plant

8b. Globular, starlike, silver-grey succulent with purple tips: Duleya

8c. Creeping, pale to dark-green waxy leaf  ivy, with 3-5 pointed leaf , no tendrils (currly q's): Cape Ivy

8d. Creeping light green ivy, with 3-5 pointed leaf and tendrils (currly q's) hanging off stem: Wild Cucumber
 
 

9a. Plants that are forbs, broad leaved short lived plant, and have thorns on stem:

9b. Plants that are not forbs, broad leaved short lived plant, and have no thorns on stem . Go to 10
 

• 2-3' tall, silver-white plant , 3" thorny purple flower head with cobweb-like material between spikes: Cobweb thistle

 
• 2"- 8" plant with numerous 1" spiked yellow flowers: Yellow Star Thistle

 

 
 
 

10a. Low growing, 1-6 feet tall, climbing, deciduous plant with oily shining red to green leaves grouped in three.  : Poison Oak

10b. Shrub with sticky, shiny, long, oval leaves and orange flowers: Sticky Monkey Flower

10c. Shrubs with leaves that are not sticky: Go to 11
 

11a. Shrubs that have a strong odor when leaves are crushed: Go to 13
11b. Shrubs that don't have a strong odor when leaves are crushed: Go to 12
Note: Some of these shrubs, especially Chamise, have an odor that varies in intensity seasonally. During the spring and summer these plant odors are very strong and during fall and winter they are more faint.
 
 

12a. Oval leaf   with small berry-fruit: Manzanitas
 

• Soft fuzzy hairs under leaf and shaggy bark on branches: Shaggy Bark Manzanita

 
• Glabrous, smooth leaf: Hooker's Manzanita

 
• Low growing less than 1' foot tall with small 1" leaf: Sandmat Manzanita

 

13a. Long Lanceolate shaped leaf and flowers in whorls as shown : Black Sage

13b. Not like 13a: Go to 14
 

14a. Shrub with very small oval leaves on branch as shownChamise (leaf size: 1/4")
 

14b. Shrub with leaf not like 14a: Go to 15
 
 
 

15a. Shrub with blue flowers, waxy dark green leaf shaped as shown : Ceanothus
 

15b. Shrub with leaf not like 15a: Go to 16
 

16a. Shrub with prickly leaf margin and shaped like a broom with most of its leaves on the end of the branches: Coyote Bush

16b. Prickly leaf, acorn, and whitish-grey bark: Coast Live Oak("See Pacific Coast Tree Finder")
 

16c. Leaf not prickly: Go to 17
 

17b. Leaf palmate, with pea pod like seeds, silver-green leaves, purple or yellow flowers as shown  : Lupine
 
 
 
 

17c. Leaflets of 3-9 leaves, with pea pod like seeds, dark green leaf, leaf smooth on surface and hairs on underside.  Yellow flowers as shown  at the end of short lateral branches: French Broom