Ambrosia eriocentra

Woolly bur-sage

Family: Asteraceae · Type: shrub · Native

Woolly bur-sage is a California native shrub found in the eastern Mojave Desert mountains and desert regions on dry washes and slopes at elevations of 450 to 1,750 meters. Flowering from April to June, this plant produces small greenish flower heads with soft, hairy clusters that are approximately 5 to 7 millimeters in diameter. Growing as a rounded shrub 30 to 180 centimeters tall with gray-brown stems that become less hairy with age, it develops a distinctive spherical shape. Its leaves are lanceolate, 1 to 9 centimeters long, with coarse teeth or lobed edges, appearing gray on the undersides and green on top, and slightly rolled under. The fruit is a distinctive green-brown bur covered in long soft hairs, with 12 to 20 sharp spines near its middle that have hair-like tips.

Habitat: dry washes and slopes

Bloom period: Apr-Jun

Elevation: 450-1750 m

Bioregions: e DMoj, DMtns

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.