Chorizanthe brevicornu

Brittle spine flower

Family: Polygonaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Brittle spine flower is a California native perennial found in low-elevation grasslands and open woodlands with dry, rocky soils. Flowering from May to July, this delicate plant produces green-white to pale yellow-white flowers in small, branching clusters with distinctive hooked awns. Growing with ascending branches that break at nodes, the plant forms diffusely branched stems 10 to 30 centimeters tall and appears green or yellow-green with fine strigose hairs. Its basal leaves are linear to spoon-shaped, measuring 1 to 3 centimeters long and 0.1 to 1 centimeter wide, providing a sparse, delicate foliage. The fruit is a small, three to four millimeter capsule with six nearly equal lobes.

California counties: San Bernardino, Inyo, Riverside, Kern, Los Angeles, Mono, 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.