Cleomella lutea

Yellow bee plant

Family: Cleomaceae · Type: annual · Native

Yellow bee plant is a California native annual found in the eastern Sierra Nevada and desert mountains in dry, sandy flats, desert scrub, and weedy roadsides at elevations of 1,100 to 2,400 meters. Flowering from May to August, this plant produces pale yellow flowers with 5 to 8 millimeter oblong to ovate petals arranged in racemes. Growing 15 to 30 centimeters tall with sparsely branched stems from upper nodes, it has a relatively open, slender structure. Its leaves are composed of 5 leaflets ranging from 1.5 to 6 centimeters long, typically linear to elliptic in shape. The plant produces elongated capsule fruits 15 to 40 millimeters long that are slightly linear and round in cross-section.

Habitat: Dry, sandy flats, desert scrub, weedy roadsides

Bloom period: May-Aug

Elevation: 1100-2400 m

Bioregions: SNE, DMtns

California counties: Inyo, San Bernardino, Mono

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