Gaillardia pulchella

Firewheel indian blanket

Family: Asteraceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Firewheel indian blanket is a naturalized perennial found in the Sierra Nevada Foothills, San Francisco Bay Area, southwestern California, and Mojave Desert in disturbed sites at elevations below 1,000 meters. Flowering throughout the summer, this plant produces vibrant red and yellow daisy-like flowers with ray petals 12 to 20 millimeters long. Growing with multiple rough-hairy stems 20 to 40 centimeters tall, it spreads from a base with several branching stems. Its leaves vary from oblong to lance-ovate, with lower leaves reaching 4 to 8 centimeters long and potentially showing pinnate lobing, while upper leaves are smaller and often entire. The fruit is 2 to 2.5 millimeters long with a distinctive pappus 5 to 8 millimeters in length.

Habitat: Disturbed sites

Elevation: < 1000 m

Bioregions: SNF, SnFrB, SW, MP

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