Diplacus pygmaeus

Egg lake monkeyflower, Egg Lake Monkeyflower

Family: Phrymaceae · Type: annual · Native

Conservation status: CNPS 4.2

Egg lake monkeyflower is a native annual found in southern California Ranges and High Sierra Nevada, northern Sierra Nevada, and Modoc Plateau in vernally wet depressions and stream channels at elevations of 1,100 to 1,800 meters. Flowering from May to June, this tiny plant produces bright yellow flowers with delicate tube-throats 5 to 10 millimeters long. Growing as an extremely compact plant less than one centimeter tall with puberulent surfaces, it forms dense, diminutive clusters. Its leaves are small, 2 to 15 millimeters long, oblanceolate to narrowly elliptic, with the lower half having distinctive ciliate edges. The fruit is a small, hard, ovoid structure 2 to 4 millimeters long, characteristic of its monkeyflower genus.

Habitat: Vernally wet depressions or along stream channels, on clay soils

Bloom period: May-Jun

Elevation: 1095-1790 m

Bioregions: s CaRH, n SNH (Lake Almanor region, Plumas Co.), MP (Egg Lake, Modoc Co., w of Eagle Lake, Lassen Co.)

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