Eriastrum tracyi

Tracy's woolly-star, tracy's eriastrum

Family: Polemoniaceae · Type: annual · Native

Conservation status: CNPS 3.2

Tracy's woolly-star is a native annual herb found in the Klamath Ranges, northern Coast Ranges, southern Sierra Nevada Foothills, San Francisco Bay Area, and Mount Shasta region in shale barrens, open hillsides, and chaparral at elevations of 320 to 1,610 meters. Flowering from May to June, this delicate plant produces flowers ranging from light blue, pinkish, and lavender to white, with a distinctive reddish-purple to white corolla often featuring a darker purplish ring near the throat. Growing 10 to 25 centimeters tall with erect stems that are lightly woolly and either simple or branched above, it develops densely woolly flower heads clustered at the stem tips. Its leaves are 10 to 25 millimeters long, woolly in texture, and range from entire to 3-lobed with linear lobes. The fruit is an oblong ellipsoid capsule 4 to 5 millimeters long, typically containing one seed per chamber.

Habitat: Shale barrens, open hillsides, ridge tops, flats, floodplains, dry washes, disturbed areas, generally in chaparral, grassland, savannah, woodland, forest

Bloom period: May-Jun

Elevation: 320-1610 m

Bioregions: KR, n NCoRI, s SNF, SnFrB, MP (ne Shasta Co.).

California counties: Kern, Tulare, Lake, Fresno, Trinity, Colusa, Shasta, Tehama, Glenn, Santa Clara, Stanislaus

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