Cryptantha glomeriflora

Clustered-flower cryptantha, Clustered-Flower Cryptantha

Family: Boraginaceae · Type: annual · Native

Conservation status: CNPS 4.3

Clustered-flower cryptantha is a California native annual found in the Sierra Nevada high and eastern ranges in open gravelly slopes, dry meadows, and snowmelt creek beds at elevations of 1,800 to 3,750 meters. Flowering from June to September, this plant produces tiny white flowers in dense, spheric clusters with only 2 to 4 blossoms per cluster. Growing with spreading to erect stems 3 to 15 centimeters tall, densely covered in stiff bristly hairs, some with bulbous bases. Its narrow leaves range from 0.5 to 2 centimeters long, linear to lance-oblong, and are similarly covered in strigose to bristly hairs. The fruit consists of smooth, shiny, pale gray nutlets that are approximately 1.5 to 2 millimeters long, with a slightly asymmetric, wide-ovate shape.

Habitat: Open gravelly slopes, dry meadows, snowmelt creek beds, generally red fir forest, subalpine herbaceous associations

Bloom period: Jun-Sep

Elevation: 1800-3750 m

Bioregions: SNH, SNE

California counties: Inyo, Nevada, Fresno, Mono, Tulare, Tuolumne, Alpine, Madera, Alameda, El Dorado, Butte, Lassen

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