Baileya pleniradiata

Woolly desert marigold

Family: Asteraceae · Type: perennial · Native

Woolly desert marigold is a California native perennial found in southern coastal California (as a waif), the eastern Sierra Nevada, and desert regions in sandy desert roadsides at elevations below 1,900 meters. Flowering from March to June and October to November, this plant produces bright yellow ray flowers 6 to 10 millimeters long in large, hemispheric flower heads. Growing with branched stems 10 to 50 centimeters tall and covered in a dense, woolly white tomentose texture, it forms a compact, canescent plant. Its leaves vary from divided basal leaves with oblong to ovate lobes to simple, narrow linear or oblanceolate stem leaves, with basal leaves typically withering by flowering time. The fruit is a distinctly angled cylindric structure 3 to 4 millimeters long with prominent ribs.

Habitat: Desert roadsides, sandy soils

Bloom period: Mar-Jun, Oct--Nov

Elevation: < 1900 m

Bioregions: SCo (waif), SNE, D

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