Cordylanthus pringlei

Pringle's bird's beak

Family: Orobanchaceae · Type: annual · Native

Pringle's bird's beak is a California native annual found in northern California Coast Ranges in open dry serpentine areas within chaparral and mixed-evergreen forest at elevations of 300 to 1,850 meters. Flowering from July to September, this plant produces yellow flowers mottled with maroon, clustered in small groups of two to four with distinctive fan-shaped outer bracts. Growing 30 to 150 centimeters tall with a green stem lightly tinged with maroon, the plant has a slender, delicate appearance. Its leaves are thread-like, measuring 10 to 40 millimeters long with zero to three subtle lobes, giving the plant a minimalist, sparse foliage structure. The seeds are dark brown, approximately 2.5 to 3 millimeters long, with a fine wavy-striate surface that adds textural interest to the plant's reproductive cycle.

Habitat: Open dry serpentine in chaparral and mixed-evergreen forest

Bloom period: Jul-Sep

Elevation: 300-1850 m

Bioregions: NCoRH, NCoRI.

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