Cryptantha echinella

Hedgehog cryptantha, Hedgehog Cryptantha

Family: Boraginaceae · Type: annual · Native

Hedgehog cryptantha is a California native annual found in southern Sierra Nevada, Sierra Nevada high country, Tehachapi, Transverse Ranges, Great Basin, and Desert Mountains including Panamint and New York Mountains in dry, gravelly, or rocky soils at elevations of 700 to 3,200 meters. Flowering from May to August, this plant produces small white flowers with minute appendages less than 2 millimeters in diameter. Growing with pale green stems 5 to 35 centimeters tall that are sparsely covered in spreading rough hairs, it develops sparse branching throughout its structure. Its leaves are generally few, 1 to 5 centimeters long, ranging from oblong to oblanceolate and covered in stiff ascending hairs. The fruit consists of 3 or 4 grayish nutlets with distinctive spiny, narrowly elongated tubercles that give the plant its hedgehog-like appearance.

Habitat: Dry, loose, gravelly, or rocky soils, disturbed areas, generally open conifer forest, occasionally juniper woodland or scrub

Bloom period: May-Aug

Elevation: 700-3200 m

Bioregions: s SNF, SNH, Teh, TR, GB, DMtns (Panamint Range, New York Mtns)

California counties: Kern, Ventura, Mono, Tulare, Alpine, Los Angeles, Plumas, Inyo, San Bernardino, El Dorado, Amador, Nevada, Modoc, Sierra, Mariposa, Placer, Tuolumne, Lassen, Madera, Fresno, 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.