Eriastrum wilcoxii

Wilcox's woolly-star

Family: Polemoniaceae · Type: annual · Native

Wilcox's woolly-star is a California native annual found in the Sierra Nevada, Great Basin, and northern Desert Mountains in open flats, slopes, and dry washes at elevations of 850 to 2,675 meters. Flowering from May to July, this plant produces delicate white to pale blue flowers with occasional reddish or purplish lines, with blossoms 9 to 14 millimeters long that have blue to pale blue lobes. Growing with erect, branched stems 10 to 30 centimeters tall, it develops a distinctively woolly appearance that becomes less hairy with maturity. Its leaves are 15 to 30 millimeters long, typically woolly and divided into 3 to 7 narrow linear lobes, with lower leaves sometimes remaining entire. The fruit is a small capsule approximately 3 to 4 millimeters long, containing seeds that are tan and diamond-shaped.

Habitat: Open flats, slopes, dry washes, ditches, alkali areas, disturbed areas, in grassland, scrub, woodland

Bloom period: May-Jul

Elevation: 850-2675 m

Bioregions: SNH, GB, n DMtns

California counties: Inyo, Mono, San Bernardino, Nevada, Fresno, Tulare, Plumas, Kern, Lassen, Alpine, Siskiyou

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