Cryptantha corollata

Coast range cryptantha, Coast Range Cryptantha

Family: Boraginaceae · Type: annual · Native

Coast range cryptantha is a California native annual found in southern Sierra Nevada Foothills, Tehachapi, southern San Joaquin Valley, San Francisco Bay Area, southern Coast Ranges, and western Transverse Ranges in dry, rocky slopes, grasslands, chaparral, and foothill woodlands at elevations of 200 to 1,450 meters. Flowering from March to June, this plant produces white flowers with yellow appendages approximately 3 to 5 millimeters in diameter. Growing with slender erect stems 10 to 45 centimeters tall, it branches sparsely and is covered with appressed hairs and occasional spreading bristles near the base. Its leaves are 1 to 4 centimeters long, oblong to narrow oblanceolate, with margins edged by minute soft bristles with bulbous bases. The fruit consists of one or occasionally two nutlets, lance-ovate and dense-papillate, about 2.2 to 2.5 millimeters long with a truncate base and short-acuminate tip.

Habitat: Dry, rocky slopes, ridges, generally metamorphic or sedimentary based substrates, occasionally on serpentine, grassland, chaparral, foothill woodland

Bloom period: Mar-Jun

Elevation: 200-1450 m

Bioregions: s SNF, Teh, s SnJV, SnFrB, s SCoRO, SCoRI, WTR, SnGb, SnJt.

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