Cryptantha flaccida

Weak-stemmed or pale cryptantha, Weak-Stemmed Or Pale Cryptantha

Family: Boraginaceae · Type: annual · Native

Weak-stemmed cryptantha is a California native annual found in the California Floristic Province and western Modoc Plateau in semi-barren gravelly sites, rocky slopes, washes, grasslands, and chaparral at elevations up to 1,700 meters. Flowering from April to July, this plant produces small white to yellow flowers with yellow appendages in delicate cymes. Growing with slender, wiry erect stems 15 to 50 centimeters tall that are pale green and appressed-hairy, it develops sparse branches throughout its structure. Its leaves are pale green, linear, 2 to 6 centimeters long, and sparsely covered with appressed hairs. The fruit consists of smooth, shiny lance-ovate nutlets 1.8 to 2.3 millimeters long with a swollen proximal half and long-acuminate tip.

Habitat: Common; semi-barren, gravelly, loose soils, rocky sites, washes, slopes, ridges, grasslands, chaparral, foothill woodland

Bloom period: Apr-Jul

Elevation: < 1700(2250) m

Bioregions: CA-FP, w MP

California counties: Fresno, Kern, Mariposa, Santa Barbara, Lake, Butte, Del Norte, Mendocino, Monterey, San Bernardino, Trinity, Tuolumne, Alameda, San Luis Obispo, Tulare, Siskiyou, Los Angeles, Placer, Amador, Contra Costa, Yolo, Humboldt, Santa Clara, Madera, Colusa, Napa, El Dorado, Sacramento, Sutter, Tehama, Calaveras, Plumas, Stanislaus, Marin, Merced, Glenn, Shasta, Yuba, Solano, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Sonoma, San Diego, Santa Cruz, San Benito, Kings, Ventura, Inyo, Riverside, Lassen

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