Pacific yerba santa facts for kids

Eriodictyon traskiae is a special kind of flowering plant. It's often called Pacific yerba santa or Trask's yerba santa. This plant belongs to the waterleaf family.

What Does It Look Like?

The Pacific yerba santa plant can grow quite tall. It can reach up to two meters, which is about 6.5 feet! Its branches and leaves are covered in thick, soft white hairs. This makes the whole plant look a bit gray-green. The leaves are shaped like ovals. They can be 3 to 14 centimeters long and 1 to 7 centimeters wide. That's about 1 to 5.5 inches long. These leaves are also fuzzy and crinkly. Their edges often curl underneath. Sometimes, they even have small teeth along the edges. When the plant flowers, it produces many small blooms. These flowers grow in thick, fuzzy groups. They can be white to brownish-purple in color. Each flower is less than one centimeter wide. After flowering, the plant makes a tiny fruit. This fruit is a small capsule, only about three millimeters wide. Inside, it holds two to four very tiny seeds.

Where Does It Grow?

This shrub is endemic to California. This means it naturally grows only in California and nowhere else in the world! You can find it growing on the slopes of the central Coast Ranges. It also grows in the Southern California Transverse Ranges. It prefers areas with chaparral, which is a type of shrubland.