Cryptantha affinis

Side-grooved cryptantha, Side-Grooved Cryptantha

Family: Boraginaceae · Type: annual · Native

Side-grooved cryptantha is a California native annual found in the Klamath Ranges, northern Coast Ranges, Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, southern Coast Ranges, Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges, and Warner Mountains in open areas and conifer forest at elevations of 630 to 2,600 meters. Flowering from May to August, this plant produces small white flowers with minute white appendages in delicate, few-flowered cymes. Growing with slender stems 5 to 30 centimeters tall, covered in strigose hairs with some spreading and upcurved, it has sparse branching primarily in the upper half. Its leaves are few, oblanceolate to oblong, 1 to 4 centimeters long, with sparse minute bristles on a bulbous base. The fruit consists of four asymmetric, shiny brown nutlets with a distinctive off-center groove, each 1.8 to 2.5 millimeters long.

Habitat: Open areas, generally conifer forest, chaparral

Bloom period: May-Aug

Elevation: 630-2600 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoR, CaR, SN, SCoRO, TR, PR, Wrn

California counties: Fresno, Lake, Shasta, Tulare, Butte, San Bernardino, Nevada, Glenn, Plumas, Tuolumne, Colusa, Calaveras, Trinity, El Dorado, Sierra, Amador, Inyo, Mono, Kern, Los Angeles, San Diego, Alpine, Placer, Modoc, Lassen, Yuba, Tehama, Mariposa, Del Norte, Humboldt, Siskiyou, Madera, Monterey, Alameda, Mendocino, San Luis Obispo, Ventura, Santa Barbara

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