SCALEBROOM

A rounded, erect shrub with broom-like branches and small, hairy, scale-like leaves, scalebroom is abundant on dry slopes and in washes across most of Southern California this summer.

Scalebroom has many clusters of bright golden-yellow flowers and grows up to six feet high. Its young shoots are covered with fine hair while older branches are green and hairless.

The grayish, rounded leaves are less than 1/2 inch long, but the plant generally is leafless. The leaves fall in late summer and do not return until late spring. On the plant’s upper part, they are reduced to scales.

Flowers, which grow at the ends of the plant’s short branches, are bell-shaped and also are less than 1/2 inch long. They are in bloom from August through the rainy winter months.

After they blossom, the flowers turn into fruit that resemble tufts of cotton.

Scalebroom ( Lepidospartum squamatum ) grows in the coastal sage scrub, chaparral and southern oak woodland plant communities.

A native California plant, the perennial shrub occasionally can be found in the desert and is especially in evidence near Whitewater Wash above Palm Springs.