Centrostegia thurberi

Red triangles

Family: Polygonaceae · Type: annual · Native

Red triangles is a California native annual found in southern San Joaquin Valley, eastern South Coast Ranges, Transverse Ranges, southeastern Sierra Nevada, and Desert regions in sandy or gravelly habitats at elevations of 300 to 2,400 meters. Flowering from March to July, this plant produces white to pink flowers 2 to 3 millimeters long with six two-lobed perianth segments. Growing with erect stems 3 to 20 centimeters tall that are sparsely glandular, it forms delicate upright plants. Its basal leaves are glabrous, 1 to 3.5 centimeters long and 0.3 to 0.8 centimeters wide, with distinctive triangular involucres featuring three basal awns and five toothed segments. The fruit is a small brown, obconic structure 2 to 2.5 millimeters long with a curved embryo.

Habitat: Common. Sand or gravel

Bloom period: Mar-Jul

Elevation: 300-2400 m

Bioregions: s SnJV, e SCoRI, TR, SNE, D

California counties: San Bernardino, Kern, Los Angeles, Inyo, Ventura, San Luis Obispo, Tulare, Riverside, Santa Barbara, Mono, Merced, San Benito, San Diego, Imperial

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