Foothill Plantain Seeds (Plantago erecta)

This fuzzy little plant has been called “unassuming.”  We think that’s laughable. 

First, it’s an annual that grows hyperfast, in colonies, on newly disturbed ground. Where it occurs in masses, the flowers look like a pile of popcorn. Those flowers – the dotted white ones – arise on short stalks, mere inches in length, flanked by thin, short, grass-like foliage. The entire affair never gets much taller than about 6-inches (and often it’s half that height). 

Second, this is a caterpillar host plant for the Edith Checkerspot butterfly (Euphydryas editha) as well as its rare subspecies (like the Taylor’s checkerspot and the Bay Checkerspot). Research from the late 1980s showed a strong linkage between the butterfly and this plant, but also a tenuous link that is vulnerable to massive disruption in years with extreme and unseasonal weather patterns – meaning that more of it should be restored across the landscape in places where it is adapted as a buffer to keep butterfly populations stable. 

Moreover, foothill plantain (sometimes called dotseed plantain) is a cornucopia of food for other meadow life, especially small seed feeding creatures, and for some of the smallest bees and flies (unlike a lot of plantains which are wind pollinated, insects visit the flowers of this plant). 

Foothill plantain naturally occurs from Oregon to Arizona (but can probably go a bit further north at least along the coast), in a roughly crescent-shaped natural range. It shows up both on inland serpentine soils, and on clay soils in coastal grasslands, quickly germinating and growing throughout winter, then flowering in spring (roughly from about March to May). Blink and you might miss it. But try not to. 

Plant it in a city parking strip for a hoot. Or add it to thin, patchy lawns in full sun. Toss it around a coastal garden, or a foothill cabin’s landscape. 

You’ll see. Unassuming? Nope.

100 Seeds (0.3 grams)