Caulanthus pilosus
Chocolate drops
Family: Brassicaceae · Type: perennial · Native
Chocolate drops is a California native perennial found in central and eastern Sierra Nevada, southern Modoc Plateau near Honey Lake, eastern Sierra Nevada, and northern Desert Mountains in open, dry areas, sagebrush scrub, and pinyon/juniper woodland at elevations of 600 to 2,800 meters. Flowering from March to July, this plant produces white to purple flowers with wavy petal margins 7 to 12 millimeters long. Growing with erect or ascending hairy stems 20 to 120 centimeters tall that can be simple or branched, it has a moderately to densely hairy structure. Its lower leaves are 2 to 24 centimeters long, oblanceolate to oblong with pinnately lobed edges and dentate lobes, while upper leaves are linear to narrowly oblanceolate. The fruit is ascending to spreading, generally curved and 2 to 18 centimeters long with 152 to 198 small oblong seeds.
Habitat: Uncommon. Open, dry areas, flats, rocky slopes, sagebrush scrub, pinyon/juniper woodland
Bloom period: Mar-Jul
Elevation: 600-2800 m
Bioregions: c&s SNH (e slope), s MP (Honey Lake), SNE, n DMtns
California counties: Inyo, Mono, Tulare, Kern, San Benito, Lassen, Madera, Santa Cruz
Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.