Centaurium tenuiflorum

Slender centaury, Slender Centaury

Family: Gentianaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Slender centaury is a naturalized annual found in northwestern California, the northern Sierra Nevada foothills, Central Valley, central Coast Ranges, and North Coast Ranges in fields, roadsides, and open woodlands at elevations below 1,800 meters. Flowering from June to August, this plant produces delicate pink to white flowers with small lobes 2 to 4.5 millimeters long. Growing with slender stems 10 to 75 centimeters tall, it forms an open, branching habit. Its leaves vary from obovate to oblong basal leaves 15 to 25 millimeters long to progressively smaller cauline leaves, with lower leaves elliptic-oblong and upper leaves becoming lance-shaped. The plant forms dense, generally flat-topped clusters of flowers that appear nearly sessile on the stems.

Habitat: Fields, roadsides, open woodland

Bloom period: Jun-Aug

Elevation: < 1800 m

Bioregions: NW (exc NCoRH), CaRF, n SNF, GV, CCo, MP

California counties: Humboldt, Marin, San Mateo, Placer, Tehama, Sacramento, Napa, Yuba, Yolo, Calaveras, Santa Cruz, Amador, Merced, Butte, Solano, Contra Costa, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Sutter, Glenn, Trinity, Lassen, Mendocino, Monterey, Colusa, Shasta, Lake, Sonoma, Santa Barbara, Nevada, San Diego, El Dorado, Mariposa, Tulare, Madera

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