Epilobium pallidum

Largeflower spike primrose

Family: Onagraceae · Type: annual · Native

Largeflower spike primrose is a California native annual found in the Klamath Ranges, northern Coast Ranges, Cascade Range, northern Sierra Nevada, Sacramento Valley, and Modoc Plateau in seasonally moist pond and stream edges at elevations of 60 to 2,050 meters. Flowering from May to August, this plant produces rose-purple flowers 3 to 10 millimeters long in crowded spikes. Growing 0.5 to 6 decimeters tall with stems that peel at the base and are densely spreading-hairy, it develops an upright, slender form. Its leaves are opposite only at the base, narrowly lance-elliptic, 12 to 50 millimeters long, with lower leaves glabrous and upper leaves hairy. The fruit is a 10 to 21 millimeter long capsule that is beaked and somewhat spreading-hairy.

Habitat: Edges of seasonally moist ponds, streams

Bloom period: May-Aug

Elevation: 60-2050 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoRI, CaR, n SN, ScV, MP

California counties: Butte, Calaveras, Shasta, Modoc, Tehama, Lake, El Dorado, Placer, Lassen, Trinity, Sierra

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