Collomia tinctoria

Staining collomia, Staining Collomia

Family: Polemoniaceae · Type: annual · Native

Staining collomia is a California native annual found in the Klamath Ranges, northern California Coast Ranges, Sierra Nevada, Transverse Ranges, and Great Basin in gravelly to rocky open areas at elevations of 600 to 3,000 meters. Flowering from June to September, this plant produces delicate pink and maroon flowers with blue pollen in small clusters of two to three blooms. Growing with slender stems 2 to 8 centimeters tall, the plant has distinctive spreading branches covered in long translucent glandular hairs. Its lower leaves are narrow and linear, glandular to the touch, and positioned along the stem with relatively long internodal spaces. The flower's unique color combination of maroon tube, pink lobes, and blue pollen makes this tiny annual a distinctive find in its rocky mountain habitats.

Habitat: Gravelly to rocky, open areas

Bloom period: Jun-Sep

Elevation: 600-3000 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoRH, CaRH, n&ampc SNH, SCoRO (San Rafael Mtns), WTR, GB

California counties: Mono, Tulare, Inyo, Placer, Plumas, Lassen, Modoc, Mendocino, Siskiyou, Santa Barbara, Tuolumne, Alpine, Trinity, Butte, Colusa, Nevada, Shasta, Amador, Sierra, Fresno, Tehama, Lake, Yuba, Humboldt, El Dorado, Del Norte, Glenn, Ventura

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