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Carmel creeper or ceanothus

Ceanothus griseus var. horizontalis (accepted: Ceanothus griseus) · Rhamnaceae · all Ceanothus records · syn. Ceanothus griseus var. horizontalis

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1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence: Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions: 1 condition stated in cited fire-evidence rows.
Fire ecology context: No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
Placement evidence: 3 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: California; Catalonia, Spain
Maintenance: No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution: Documented in CA.
Native range: No current cited or legacy state native range is normalized.
Introduced / established: No introduced or established row is normalized; that does not prove native status.
USDA hardiness: No hardiness value is normalized.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status: Set a location for an exact legal-list result; source silence is not clearance.
Seed-list status: Set a location to compare the separate state noxious-weed seed layer.
Reported invasive here: No ecological invasive report is normalized; that does not prove noninvasiveness.
Broader regional context: Aggregate AK, HI, and L48 evidence is shown only as regional context, never as an exact-state finding.
Federal context: Federal designations remain separate from state legal-list results.

How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Form: groundcover
Grows in: CA
Rated in: California; Catalonia, Spain
Family: Rhamnaceae
Evidence: 3 cited sources

Conditions in the fire evidence

These describe tested or rated plant material. They are not horticultural maintenance instructions.

green: Landscape for Fire Protection evidence row

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

Low-volume and slow-burning vegetation for planting on cl…: Table 3: Fair performance [nord-green-brushland-clearing-performance] (mid-scale rating)
Landscape for Fire Protection: irrigated hillsides [maire-1968-fire-protection-landscape] (with its recommendation)
Guía de pirojardinería: suitable inside or outside the 25-metre maximum-risk zone [girona-2020-iuf-25m-suitability] (with its recommendation)

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Mid-scale / conditional (1)

Low-volume and slow-burning vegetation for planting on clearings in California chaparral — USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station · PSW-124 · original source Primary evidence Field program

“Fair performance”

Carmel creeper or ceanothus is printed in Table 3's “Fair performance” section.

Last verified 2026-08-25. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF ·

Ceanothus griseus var. horizontalis (Carmel creeper or ceanothus). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/ceanothus-griseus-var-horizontalis/. Last verified 2026-08-25.