Anemone grayi

Blue windflower

Family: Ranunculaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Blue windflower is a California native perennial found in the Klamath Ranges, northern Coast Ranges, San Francisco Bay Area, and northern Santa Cruz Mountains in moist shaded slopes and redwood forests at elevations of 100 to 900 meters. Flowering from February to June, this plant produces white or blue flowers with 5 to 6 sepals 7 to 15 millimeters long in solitary blooms. Growing with slender stems 10 to 30 centimeters tall, it emerges from a spreading rhizome with delicate ascending growth. Its distinctive leaves are sparse, with finely soft-hairy leaflets arranged in a diamond or ovate shape, featuring crenate or occasionally serrate margins. The plant produces a small elliptic fruit with a curved 1-millimeter beak, clustered in a nearly spherical aggregate.

Habitat: Moist shaded slopes, redwood and mixed-evergreen forests

Bloom period: Feb-Jun

Elevation: 100-900 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoR, SnFrB, n SCoRO

California counties: Del Norte, San Mateo, Marin, El Dorado, Humboldt, Monterey, Sonoma, Santa Clara, Shasta, Mendocino, Santa Cruz, Trinity, Plumas

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