Cordylanthus nidularius

Mount diablo bird's-beak

Family: Orobanchaceae · Type: annual · Native

Conservation status: CNPS 1B.1

Mount diablo bird's-beak is a rare (CNPS 1B.1) California native annual found in the eastern slope of Mount Diablo in the San Francisco Bay Area bioregion in dry, open serpentine chaparral at elevations of 600 to 800 meters. Flowering from July to August, this plant produces white flowers with maroon-lined lower lip and throat in loose clusters. Growing less than 15 centimeters tall with decumbent, openly branched stems that are gray-green and maroon-tinged, it has a distinctively glandular-puberulent appearance. Its leaves are narrowly linear, 10 to 30 millimeters long, with zero to three small lobes. The seeds are dark brown, approximately ovoid, and finely wavy-striate, measuring 1.5 to 2 millimeters in length.

Habitat: Dry, open serpentine in chaparral

Bloom period: Jul-Aug

Elevation: 600-800 m

Bioregions: ne SnFrB (e slope Mount Diablo).

California counties: Contra Costa

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