Encelia farinosa × Encelia frutescens

Family: Cupressaceae · Type: shrub

Encelia hybrid is a shrub found in desert washes, disturbed places, and roadsides at elevations below 800 meters. Flowering from February to May, this plant produces yellow disk flowers with white ray flowers 5 to 20 millimeters long in small clustered heads. Growing 50 to 120 centimeters tall with few to many branches from one or several short trunks, it develops rough bark on older stems and remains hairy when young. Its scattered leaves are elliptic to narrowly ovate, 10 to 50 millimeters long, with a gray-green color and light tomentose texture covered with strigose hairs. The plant is a spontaneous hybrid between two Encelia species, creating a distinctive desert shrub with variable characteristics.

Habitat: Roadsides, disturbed places, desert washes, flats

Bloom period: Feb-May

Elevation: < 800 m

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