Chaenactis santolinoides

Santolina pincushion, Santolina Pincushion

Family: Asteraceae · Type: perennial · Native

Santolina pincushion is a native perennial herb found in southern Sierra Nevada, Tehachapi Mountains, southern Coast Ranges, and Transverse Ranges on open sandy to rocky ridges and talus slopes at elevations of 1,500 to 2,900 meters. Flowering from May to August, this plant produces white to pale pink flowers in small, scapose heads about 1 to 2 centimeters long. Growing as a tufted or mat-like plant 10 to 25 centimeters tall with generally 5 to 15 stems, it has a distinctive woolly appearance with white to gray proximal hairs. Its basal leaves are persistent and intricately structured, with 10 to 18 pairs of overlapping lobes that are cylindric to fusiform, with curled and twisted tips. The plant forms dense, compact clusters with leaves that have distinctive gland-pitted surfaces beneath delicate hairs.

Habitat: Open sandy to rocky ridges, talus, scree, road cuts

Bloom period: May-Aug

Elevation: (1100)1500-2900 m

Bioregions: s SNH, Teh, s SCoRO, TR.

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