Claytonia gypsophiloides

Gypsum spring beauty

Family: Montiaceae · Type: annual · Native

Gypsum spring beauty is a California native annual found in the northern Coast Ranges, San Francisco Bay Area, and southern Coast Ranges, including the Santa Lucia Range and Figueroa Mountain, in moist, often stony serpentine sites at elevations below 1,300 meters. Flowering from March to May, this delicate plant produces generally pink flowers 5 to 8 millimeters long in clusters of 3 to 30 blooms. Growing with slender stems 3 to 25 centimeters tall that spread or stand erect and have a slightly bluish-gray appearance, it develops distinctive linear leaves. Its basal leaves stretch 2 to 15 centimeters long, while cauline leaves are shorter and uniquely structured, sometimes fused into a two-toothed disk. The tiny seeds are elliptic, measuring 1 to 1.5 millimeters, with a minimal appendage.

Habitat: Moist, bare, often stony sites, in sun or shade, often serpentine

Bloom period: Mar-May

Elevation: < 1300 m

Bioregions: NCoR, SnFrB, SCoR (Santa Lucia Range, Figueroa Mtn).

California counties: Mendocino, Marin, Alameda, Contra Costa, Kern, Lake, Napa, Santa Clara, Sonoma, Stanislaus, Tulare, Monterey, San Diego, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Colusa, Merced, Amador

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