Calycadenia mollis
Soft calycadenia
Family: Asteraceae · Type: annual · Native
Soft calycadenia is a California native annual herb found in central Sierra Nevada Foothills, central Sierra Nevada, and San Joaquin Valley in open, dry meadows and fields at elevations of 100 to 1,500 meters. Flowering from May to September, this plant produces yellow, white, or rose-colored ray flowers 5 to 6 millimeters long with ray heads in dense clusters. Growing with stems 30 to 90 centimeters tall that are often zigzag-curved and long soft-hairy, it has a delicate, branching structure. Its leaves are 2 to 8 centimeters long, typically longest at the mid-stem, with a soft and flexible appearance. The plant produces ray fruits that are generally rough-wrinkled and nearly glabrous, with disk flowers featuring pappus scales that are mostly lanceolate and acuminate.
Habitat: Common. Open, dry meadows, fields
Bloom period: May-Sep
Elevation: 100-1500 m
Bioregions: c&s SNF, c SNH, SnJV.
Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.