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Limonium californicum; photograph (c) Chuck Martin, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) CC BY-SA(c) Chuck Martin, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) · observed growing wild · 2026-07-26

Limonium californicum (Boiss.) A.Heller

Marsh-rosemary; California sea lavender

Plumbaginaceae · Oregon, California +2

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Limonium californicum, photograph author not stated, no rights reservedLimonium californicum, photograph author not stated, no rights reservedLimonium californicum, photograph author not stated, no rights reservedLimonium californicum, photograph (c) Aaron Liston, some rights reserved (CC BY)Limonium californicum, photograph (c) Aaron Liston, some rights reserved (CC BY)Limonium californicum, photograph (c) Aaron Liston, some rights reserved (CC BY) 92 photographs ›
Habitat figures
Cold floor (1 night in 100)
2.1°C
Record low -2.8 °C in 44 years, at a typical spot in the range NASA POWER
Warmest month, mean daily high
24°C
Aug and Sep at the habitat CHELSA
Rain a year (median across the range)
522mm
7 months of 25 mm or more in the median year CHELSA
Open-sky light
15–51DLI
Lowest to highest month (DLI) CHELSA
The year in your months, northern hemisphere
  1. Jan
  2. Feb
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun
  7. Jul
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct
  11. Nov
  12. Dec
Wet winters: the rain comes December to March, read as a winter growing season. rain rule, CHELSA
Northern hemisphere unless you set your site. The chart is in the habitat's months.

Summary

Limonium californicum is a species of sea lavender in the family Plumbaginaceae. It is known by the common names western marsh rosemary and California sea lavender.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Limonium californicum", CC BY-SA 4.0.

About the genus · Limonium

Limonium is a genus of about 600 flowering plant species. Members are also known as sea-lavender, statice, caspia or marsh-rosemary. Despite their common names, species are not related to the lavenders or to rosemary. More on Wikipedia ›

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Limonium", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Seasons

The rain rule reads a winter growing season: 70% of the median year's rain (374 mm of 518 mm) falls in December to March, cooler than the year (wet-season mean 11.3 °C against a yearly mean of 14.9 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: June to September.

Rain

518 mm in the median year at the habitat, 374 mm of it December to March. Wettest month January at 104 mm, driest month July at 1 mm; 3 months under 5 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 168 mm to 1,411 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 522 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 518 mm here is the median year's, the twelve monthly medians added, which the rain rule reads. Habitat calendar, northern hemisphere; median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA.

Light

Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 51 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 10, the highest 90th-percentile month 52).

Warmth and air
Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range is 2.1 °C, the absolute minimum -2.8 °C, 24 frost nights in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 38.7 °C. Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 7.5 °C in January (across the grid cells of the range 5.4 °C to 11.5 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 24.0 °C in August and September (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: 2.1 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER).

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 61 to 64% across the year (monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

How this section is made

Each card states this species' habitat figures with their sources, and what two fixed rules read from them; nothing here says what the plant does, wants or tolerates. The rules · the terms.

Seasons. Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the grid cells of the range: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve moves 4 °C or more and the habitat lies 10° or more from the equator. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain. CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the grid cells of the range. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light. CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Temperature. NASA POWER daily minima and maxima over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, lapse-corrected -247 m to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range. The cold floor is the 1st-percentile night named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity. CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the grid cells of the range.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat months, northern hemisphere

Habitat climate of Limonium californicum through the yearWarmest months August and September, mean daily high 24 °C; coldest month January, mean nightly low 7.5 °C; 518 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added). Medians across the range, from CHELSA; the extremes at the edge from NASA POWER. Habitat months, northern hemisphere.-10°0°10°20°30°40°frost38.7° 99th-percentile day, NASA POWER-2.8° lowest night in 44 years, NASA POWER°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400mm rainDLI 15–51RH 61–64%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain medians and 10th–90th percentile across 168 habitat cells, CHELSA cold quarter: the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low extremes over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, from NASA POWER, marked at the edge, in no month DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C15 / 12–1816 / 12–1817 / 13–1919 / 13–2219 / 15–2321 / 16–2623 / 18–2824 / 18–2924 / 18–2922 / 16–2518 / 14–2114 / 12–18
Night °C8 / 5–128 / 6–129 / 8–129 / 8–1311 / 10–1413 / 11–1614 / 12–1814 / 13–1914 / 12–1913 / 11–1710 / 8–148 / 6–12
Rain mm104 / 29–23398 / 37–19178 / 30–18933 / 7–11013 / 2–563 / 2–261 / 0–52 / 1–105 / 4–1828 / 8–7559 / 19–19794 / 26–313
DLI17 / 12–2422 / 17–3031 / 26–3840 / 36–4647 / 43–5051 / 48–5250 / 48–5145 / 44–4738 / 35–4028 / 24–3319 / 14–2615 / 10–22
RH %62 / 55–6562 / 57–6562 / 59–6561 / 57–6563 / 57–6764 / 56–6864 / 57–6964 / 57–6964 / 57–6862 / 57–6561 / 56–6561 / 55–64
How this section is made
Each figure is the median across the 168 grid cells on land that hold in-range records (808 records in those cells; 4 more cells hold records but no land by the elevation layer, so those records sit at sea and the cells are left out), with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. A dash is a month one or more of those cells has no figure for in the grid (a variable CHELSA does not carry there), so no median is taken rather than one over fewer cells. Extremes and elevation were read at a typical spot in the range, cell 1093:1184 (35.325, -120.775). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -2.8 °C, 1st-percentile night 2.1 °C, 99th-percentile day 38.7 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Across the range: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 168 distinct grid cells holding 808 of the 813 in-range records (4 further cells with records at sea, by the elevation layer, left out); extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1093:1184 (its coldest month's mean nightly low nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 35.50_-120.625, lapse-corrected -247 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 81 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across the cells of the in-range records placed well enough to read one, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeOregon, California, Nevada, Mexico Northwest · regions are the level-3 units of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, as Kew's World Checklist records ranges, some under historical names such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia (how).
Map marker32.638, -117.139 · in the densest population, 483 records (53% of those in range)
Kew's description“perennial” · “temperate” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 910 georeferenced records inside the native range; the climate across the range on the 808 of them in the land cells it reads, of 813 placed to within 10 km; the map shows only the 257 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 137 km away. 11 records outside the WCVP native range not used. 97 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or with no stated accuracy (admitted only as a person's observation to three decimals), and stay on the map but off the climate.
How this section is made
The map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 2° block of the 910 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Limonium californicum, photograph 1did not loadLimonium californicum, photograph 2did not loadLimonium californicum, photograph 3did not loadLimonium californicum, photograph 4did not loadLimonium californicum, photograph 5did not loadLimonium californicum, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: author not stated, no rights reserved · CC0 (3); (c) Aaron Liston, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3).

Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.

Potentilla lindleyi Potentilla lindleyi Rosaceae Photo: CC BY, Konshau DumanJuncus phaeocephalus Juncus phaeocephalus Brownhead rush Photo: CC BY, Rupert ClaytonStachys bullata Stachys bullata California hedgenettle Photo: CC0, author not statedCastilleja affinis Castilleja affinis Coast Indian paintbrush Photo: CC BY, Mary JantschCyperus eragrostis Cyperus eragrostis Tall flatsedge Photo: CC BY, 大澤風季 ohsawa_FukiCeanothus impressus Ceanothus impressus Santa Barbara ceanothus Photo: CC BY-SA, paulexcoff

Other Limonium 43 in the reference

Limonium arboreum Limonium arboreum Plumbaginaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, acn41Limonium auriculae-ursifolium Limonium auriculae-ursifolium Broad-leaved Sea-lavender Photo: CC BY, Franck CabotLimonium axillare Limonium axillare Plumbaginaceae Photo: CC BY, Julien RenoultLimonium bellidifolium Limonium bellidifolium Matted sea-lavender Photo: CC BY, Louis AuregliaLimonium bicolor Limonium bicolor Bicolored sea lavender Photo: CC BY, Jane CharlenLimonium binervosum Limonium binervosum Rock sea-lavender Photo: CC BY, Flavien SaboureauLimonium brassicifolium Limonium brassicifolium Plumbaginaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Paki06Limonium caesium Limonium caesium Plumbaginaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, NanosanchezLimonium carolinianum Limonium carolinianum Carolina sea lavender Photo: CC0, author not stated Limonium cedrorum Plumbaginaceae Limonium coriarium Limonium coriarium Plumbaginaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, SalicynaLimonium dendroides Limonium dendroides Plumbaginaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Jeffdelonge all 44 ›

Names & registers

Also known as Limonium californicum var. californicum; Limonium californicum var. mexicanum; Limonium commune subsp. californicum; Limonium commune var. californicum; Limonium commune var. mexicanum and 3 more. (GBIF Backbone)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataWikipediaiNaturalist

The record

Family
Plumbaginaceae
Described by
(Boiss.) A.Heller
Native to
Oregon, California, Nevada +1
Wild records
910 in range · 257 open

Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →

Where this page came from built 2026-10-22
GBIF species record gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22
WCVP native range wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21; 26 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (5 at a botanic garden or arboretum, 1 at a herbarium, 20 at a zoo; Wikidata's list)
Habitat climate climate answeredasked 2026-10-22
Daily extremes (NASA POWER) climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 35.50_-120.625, lapse-corrected -247 m at 6.5 °C/km
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22found by its label; its IPNI identifier 140340-2 is Kew's for Limonium californicum (Boiss.) A.Heller
Wikipedia wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.photos.wild answeredasked 2026-10-22from iNaturalist's open data of 2026-09-27: research-grade observations with an open-licence photograph, the 24 whose photographs iNaturalist received last (the open data holds no votes); filled 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22
OpenAlex papers openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshot

Every source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 54 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

Opening your plants…