Calycadenia fremontii

Fremont's calycadenia

Family: Asteraceae · Type: annual · Native

Fremont's calycadenia is a California native annual found in northwestern California, the Cascade Range, northern Sierra Nevada foothills, and Sacramento Valley in open, dry meadows and gravelly washes at elevations of 50 to 1,400 meters. Flowering from April to October, this plant produces yellow, cream, or white ray flowers that age to pink, arranged in heads with 1 to 3 clusters per node. Growing with erect stems 10 to 100 centimeters tall, it has a rigid main axis covered in fine strigose hairs. Its leaves are predominantly on the lower portion of the plant, measuring 2 to 8 centimeters long, with narrow linear characteristics. The plant features distinctive tack-like glands on its bracts and phyllaries, with ray flowers that have slightly asymmetric lobes widest beyond the middle.

Habitat: Common. Open, dry meadows, hillsides, gravelly washes

Bloom period: Apr-Oct

Elevation: 50-1400 m

Bioregions: NW, CaR, n SNF, ScV

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