Camissonia contorta

Contorted sun cup

Family: Onagraceae · Type: annual · Native

Contorted sun cup is a California native annual found in the northwestern California, Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada Foothills, Central Valley, central western California, and Modoc Plateau regions in sandy soils, grasslands, chaparral, and pinyon/juniper woodlands at elevations below 2,300 meters. Flowering from May to June, this plant produces yellow flowers that fade to reddish, with delicate petals 3 to 5 millimeters long and subtle basal spots. Growing with slender, wiry stems 3 to 30 centimeters tall that tend to peel and spread with transparent rod-shaped hairs, it has a delicate and flexible structure. Its leaves are blue-green, linear to narrowly elliptic, 10 to 35 millimeters long with minute serrations along the edges. The fruit is a distinctive elongated capsule 25 to 35 millimeters long, sometimes straight and sometimes wavy, subtly swollen with seeds.

Habitat: Sandy soil, slopes, flats, often disturbed, grassland, chaparral, pinyon/juniper woodland

Bloom period: May-Jun

Elevation: < 2300 m

Bioregions: NW, CaR, SNF, GV, CW, MP

California counties: San Francisco, Tuolumne, Merced, Mariposa, Lake, Kern, Contra Costa, Fresno, Siskiyou, Santa Cruz, San Joaquin, Butte, Modoc, San Benito, Monterey, Lassen, Humboldt, Stanislaus, Santa Clara, Madera, Ventura, San Luis Obispo, Tulare, Plumas, Shasta, Tehama, Mono, El Dorado, Santa Barbara, Sutter, Colusa, Inyo, Riverside, Napa, Alameda, Mendocino, Calaveras, Trinity, Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Diego, Glenn, Sierra, Yolo

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