Clarkia purpurea

Purple clarkia

Family: Onagraceae · Type: annual · Native

Purple clarkia is a California native annual found in various bioregions in grasslands, oak woodlands, and chaparral at elevations from near sea level to 1,500 meters. Flowering from April to June, this plant produces lavender, pale pink to dark wine-red flowers with fan-shaped petals often featuring a distinctive red or purple spot near the center. Growing 20 to 60 centimeters tall with stems that are decumbent to erect and glabrous or lightly hairy, it has a delicate, branching form. Its leaves are linear to narrowly oblanceolate, measuring 1.5 to 7 centimeters long, with minimal or no petiole. The fruit is a slender capsule 1 to 3 centimeters in length, producing multiple seeds.

California counties: Contra Costa, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, Kern, Santa Cruz, Lake, Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Diego, Riverside, San Benito, Monterey, Madera, Solano, Tuolumne, Nevada, San Luis Obispo, Shasta, El Dorado, Colusa, Mariposa, Fresno, Amador, Sonoma, Placer, Butte, Tehama, Alameda, Mendocino, Plumas, Merced, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Marin, Humboldt, San Mateo, Trinity, Calaveras, Napa, Yolo, Yuba, Tulare, Stanislaus, Santa Clara

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