© nathantay · CC BY-NC
iNaturalist — CC, credited & licensed per image
Poaceae family
California Orcutt Grass Orcuttia californica
Native
California Orcutt Grass is an annual grass native to the lower 48 states. It blooms Apr – Sep.
Growing & care
USDA PLANTS · TRY Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
- Hardiness
- ≥ zone 11 derived from its U.S. range
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Foliage
- Lifespan
- Annual
- Foliage
- Broadleaf
In the garden
Herb layer — Sits in the herb of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
Rain garden / bioswale — Rated OBL on the wetland list — tolerates wet feet, so it suits the soggy zone of a rain garden or bioswale that catches and filters runoff.Open guide →
derived roles The garden year bloom → fruit → fall colour
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Bloom
Bloom (the flower's colour)
Bloom · Apr – Sep — 46 obs · Herbarium specimens — Park et al. 2023 (CC BY 4.0)
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a
guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.
Wildlife & pollinators
How pollinator value is scored →✦ Bees 1 bee visitor
1 native & managed bee species is documented visiting California Orcutt Grass :
Visitor records (observations, not exhaustive) from Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) ·
GloBI →
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
Related plants
More Orcuttia →
Native
Hairy Orcutt Grass
Orcuttia pilosa
○○○○○ 
Native
Sacramento Orcutt Grass
Orcuttia viscida
○○○○○ 
Native
San Joaquin Valley Orcutt Grass
Orcuttia inaequalis
○○○○○ 
Native
Slender Orcutt Grass
Orcuttia tenuis
○○○○○ Same genus / family, ranked by ecological value — from the PlantKey catalog
How we know this (1) Methods & honest limits
Photosynthesis Direct fact
A recorded categorical fact: each species is tagged C3 (standard), C4 (heat/water-efficient) or CAM (succulent, night-time CO₂ uptake) — or a facultative combination. We only show a trait card for the noteworthy C4/CAM cases; C3 is the unremarkable majority, kept in the data but not surfaced as a card.
Kattge, J. et al. TRY plant trait database — Categorical Traits Dataset (2012).
Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation.
Full methodology →
Sources for this entry (15) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — native status
[06] Wetland indicator — USACE National Wetland Plant List (2022)
[07] Photos — iNaturalist — CC, credited per image
[08] Bloom period — Herbarium specimens — Park et al. 2023 (CC BY 4.0)
[09] Conservation rank — NatureServe Explorer (CC BY)
[10] Federal ESA status — USFWS ECOS (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)
[11] Foliage — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[12] Photosynthetic pathway — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[13] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[15] County range — GBIF Open Data — open-licensed occurrences (CC0/CC-BY) → county
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute
PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).
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