Dendromecon rigida
Near Lompoc, California
April 1973

Dendromecon rigida
La Panza Range, San Luis Obispo Co., California
24 Feb 2011

Dendromecon rigida
Shasta Lake, California
16 May 2009

Trees and Shrubs of Kern County (Jan 2013)

Dendromecon rigida Bentham 1835. Bush poppy.  Weak-stemmed evergreen shrub, much branched to 2 (-3) m high, stems white to gray, the bark shredding; leaves alternate on twisted stalks (petioles), thin, elliptical, 2–3× longer than wide, nearly entire; flowering Apr–Jun (-Aug).  Common shrub of the California-Baja California chaparral, below 6,000 ft.. Type from California.  Bush poppy scrub recognized when 50% relative cover in the shrub canopy.  Kern Co.: Infrequent, Piute Mt and Greenhorn Range, 1,280–1,504 m (CCH).  The Greenhorn Range population near the “old Greenhorn School on Rattlesnake Grade reportedly had been overgrown by a Ceanothus cuneatus thicket in 1961 at which time there were only about a dozen plants left after a 1948 fire (Twisselmann, comm. with Charlotte Smith).