Grayia spinosa
Owens Valley near Bishop CA
May 2006

Grayia spinosa
Owens Valley near Bishop CA
May 2008

Grayia spinosa
Kern Co.: Jawbone Canyon, CA
Apr 2011

Trees and Shrubs of Kern County (Sep 2012)

Grayia spinosa (Chenopodium spinosum Hooker 1838) Moquin-Tandon 1849. Hop sage. Much branched spiny shrub to 2.5 m, or tree-like in southwestern Colorado to 5 m or more; young stems green soon turning pale reddish with small white granular crud, like white flies, older stems with white longitudinal ridges separated by wider brown furrows; branches often at right angles, spine tipped; leaves alternate, solitary or in clusters, erect from petiole or blades up-curved, elliptical to spoon-shaped, often widest above the mid region and strongly narrowed to base (cuneate), often asymmetrical in curving more strongly along one edge (falcate or sickle-shaped), apically rounded to point (mucro) at apex, covered with small whitish powdery hair-remains as seen on the stems; flowers Apr–Jun, males and females usually on separate plants (dioecious), males in axillary clusters of 2–5, each with 4–5 sepals and stamens, female flowers without sepals, a bicarpellate pistil with a two lobed stigma enclosed by two round fused bracts that enlarge in fruit, usually in terminal clusters; fruit—diclesium, a flattened sac enclosing the brownish pericarpium (utricle), the fruit bracts membranous, reticulate, maturing reddish maroon to pinkish, 7.5–14 mm diam.  Great Basin and Mojave Deserts.  Spiny hop sage scrub recognized in MCV2  when  dominant  with >2% absolute cover except in some cases where Ericameria cooperi or Lycium andersonii may dominate. Type thought to be from the Columbia Basin of eastern Washington.  Kern Co.: Frequent on rocky slopes and plains in the Mojave Desert region, 669–1,724 m.