Red Hills Vervain
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Sacramento Fish & Wildlife Office
Species Account
RED HILLS VERVAIN
(Verbena californica)
CLASSIFICATION:Federal Threatened Species (Federal Register 63:49022 pdf; September 14, 1998)
CRITICAL HABITAT: None designated.
RECOVERY PLAN: Southern Sierran Foothills plants (under development).
DESCRIPTION:
Red Hills vervain (Verbena californica), also known as California vervain, is an erect perennial herb belonging to the vervain family (Verbenaceae). It grows to 23 inches in height with opposite, bright green leaves without stems. White-blue to purple blossoms appear from May through September. One to five flowers grow at the top of each spike.
No closely related species co-occur with Red Hills vervain. See Hickman (1993) in General Information about California Plants, below, for a detailed description of the species, under the name California vervain.
DISTRIBUTION:
Red Hills vervain only grows at an elevation of 850 to 1,150 feet in the Red Hills and nearby Rawhide Hill in western Tuolumne County. The plants grow in moderately wet (mesic) areas, often in overflow channels, along intermittent and perennial streams underlain by serpentine rocks, often in the blue oak (Quercus douglasii) or gray pine (Pinus sabiniana) woodland communities. The populations are distributed over about 90 acres within a 24 square mile area. Fifteen percent of the plants occur on lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management and 85 percent on privately owned lands.
Serpentine soils are formed from weathered volcanic ( ultramafic) rocks such as serpentinite. dunite, and peridotite. These soils provide a harsh environment for plant growth. Several factors contribute to the inhospitability of serpentine soils to plant growth including: 1) a low calcium-magnesium ratio; 2) lack of essential nutrients such as nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous; and 3) high concentrations of heavy metals (mineral toxicity).
SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS:
Red Hills vervain is threatened by urbanization, recreational gold mining, off-highway vehicle use, trash dumping, inadequate regulatory mechanisms and random extirpations from small size and numbers of populations. Grazing and trampling may also threaten this plant. Observations suggest that Red Hills vervain can withstand only light grazing before it disappears.
Although Red Hills vervain can set seed, this species reproduces asexually by bulblets formed from the underground bulb. In fact, the species does not reproduce readily from seed in the wild. There is speculation that this has resulted in a naturally occurring barrier to the spread of the species. Another barrier to dispersal is the lack of wet, serpentine habitat in California.
This species was listed as endangered by the California Department of Fish and Game in August 1994, under the name of California vervain. The California Native Plant Society has placed it on List 1B (rare or endangered throughout its range), also as California vervain.
REFERENCES FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. 1998. Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Determination of Threatened Status for Four Plants From the Foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. Portland, Oregon.
General Information about California Plants
Photo credit: Red Hills Vervain © 1982 Dean Wm. Taylor Calphoto ID: 0000 0000 0801 0594
Prepared by Endangered
Species Div., Sacramento Fish & Wildlife
Office, U.S. Fish & Wildlife
Service
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