Camissonia strigulosa

Contorted primrose

Family: Onagraceae · Type: annual · Native

Contorted primrose is a California native annual found on the southern edge of the Sierra Nevada, Tehachapi, Central Western, and Southwestern California regions in open sandy soils of dunes, grassland, and desert scrub at elevations below 2,100 meters. Flowering from March to May, this plant produces yellow flowers that fade to reddish tones, with subtle basal spots and petals 2.1 to 4.5 millimeters long. Growing with slender, wiry stems up to 50 centimeters tall that peel and have a decumbent or erect habit, it spreads with a distinctive minutely strigose texture. Its narrow leaves range from 8 to 35 millimeters long, linear to narrowly elliptic with delicate minute serrations along the edges. The fruit develops as a slender pod 15 to 45 millimeters long, often slightly swollen with seeds and appearing straight or gently wavy.

Habitat: Open sandy soils of dunes, grassland, desert scrub

Bloom period: Mar-May

Elevation: < 2100 m

Bioregions: s edge s SNH, Teh, CW, SW (exc s ChI), w DMoj

California counties: Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Kern, Riverside, Orange, San Diego, Monterey, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Ventura, San Luis Obispo, Marin, Santa Cruz, Sonoma, Santa Clara, Stanislaus, Alameda, San Benito, Fresno, Tulare, Madera, Inyo, Sutter, San Mateo, Humboldt, Lake, Contra Costa, Merced

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