Cordylanthus ramosus

Bushy bird's beak

Family: Orobanchaceae · Type: annual · Native

Bushy bird's beak is a California native annual found in northern California Ranges, Great Basin, and Death Mountains in the Panamint Range, inhabiting rocky and alkaline soils in sagebrush scrub at elevations of 1,050 to 2,850 meters. Flowering from July to August, this plant produces dusty yellow flowers often marked with maroon, clustered in spike-like groups of 3 to 7 flowers with distinctive outer bracts. Growing 10 to 90 centimeters tall with a gray-green or reddish-tinged appearance and a somewhat canescent texture, it develops an intricate branching structure. Its leaves are slender, 10 to 40 millimeters long, ranging from entire to 5-lobed and thread-like in form. The seeds are small, approximately 2 millimeters long, ovoid in shape with a deeply netted surface in light brown.

Habitat: Rocky to alkaline soils in sagebrush scrub

Bloom period: Jul-Aug

Elevation: 1050-2850 m

Bioregions: n CaRH (Shasta Valley), GB, DMtns (Panamint Range)

California counties: Mono, Inyo, Modoc, Lassen, Tulare

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