Collinsia grandiflora

Giant blue eyed mary

Family: Plantaginaceae · Type: annual · Native

Giant blue eyed mary is a California native annual found in the Klamath Ranges, northern Coast Ranges, and northern Coast Ranges of the Outer Coast in gravelly or grassy margins of conifer woodland at elevations of 400 to 1,600 meters. Flowering from April to July, this plant produces blue flowers with a distinctive pale white upper lip, each bloom 8 to 15 millimeters long with a prominent angular pouch and wide obovate lobes that are 2 to 6 millimeters across. Growing 6 to 35 centimeters tall with delicate branching stems, it develops an open, glabrous to finely glandular inflorescence. Its leaves are narrowly oblong to lanceolate, nearly entire, and arranged along the slender stems. The plant produces four plump, unwinged oblong seeds that mature after flowering.

Habitat: Gravelly or grassy margins of conifer woodland

Bloom period: Apr-Jul

Elevation: 400-1600 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoRO, NCoRH

California counties: Humboldt, Lake, Shasta, Siskiyou, Trinity, Napa, Sutter, Colusa, Sonoma, Mendocino, Plumas, Del Norte, Tulare, Lassen, Tehama, Amador, Butte

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