Coastal Gum Plant is a hardy, salt-tolerant perennial native to the California coastline. Its flowers are brilliant, "sunny" yellow ray and disk florets. The stems can sometimes take on a rusty red or purplish hue.
The plant typically stays very low to the sandy ground, ranging from 6 to 12 inches (15–30 cm). Coastal Gum Plants sprawl out; reaching three to seven feet (1–2.1 m) across.
Coastal Gum Plant is built for the beach. It is a salt-tolerant plant (known as a halophyte), meaning it can survive being blasted by salt spray and growing in sandy, salty soils where most other plants would shrivel.
Before blooming, the spiny flower buds of the Coastal Gum Plant are covered in a distinctive milky white resin that looks like a dollop of glue or latex. This is what gives Coastal Gum Plant its common name. That "gum" serves a biological purpose: it acts as a sticky trap or deterrent for crawling insects like ants that might try to steal nectar without pollinating the plant. The gummy, white fluid on the flower buds is so sticky that it was traditionally used as an adhesive for binding simple tools.
Photo by Kim Forsberg
Photo by Lisa Lapin
Coastal Gum Plant relies on
Sun
Water
Nutrients