Comarostaphylis diversifolia
species of plant
Comarostaphylis diversifolia, known by the common names summer holly and California comarostaphylos, is a species of shrub in the heath family.
It is native to Southern California and northern Baja California, where it grows in coastal chaparral habitat.
Description
Comarostaphylis diversifolia is an erect shrub which can exceed 4 metres (13 ft) in height. Its bark is gray and shreddy and the tough, evergreen leaves are oval in shape and sometimes toothed.
The inflorescence is a raceme of urn-shaped flowers very similar to those of the related shrubs, the manzanitas. The fruit is a bright red, juicy drupe with a bumpy skin.
Subspecies
There are two subspecies:
Comarostaphylis diversifolia ssp. diversifolia - native to the coastal hills of Southern California and Baja California.
Comarostaphylis diversifolia ssp. planifolia - native to the Channel Islands of California and the Transverse Ranges north of Los Angeles.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Comarostaphylis diversifolia” as species of plant. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as species of plant. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 27, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q4036428. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Comarostaphylis diversifolia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.