Gilia austro-occidentalis

Southwestern gilia

Family: Polemoniaceae · Type: annual · Native

Southwestern gilia is a California native annual found in southern Coast Ranges, southern San Joaquin Valley, and western Transverse Ranges in sandy interior and coastal valley flats at elevations of 600 to 1,300 meters. Flowering from March to May, this plant produces lavender flowers with purple throats and a yellow corolla center, featuring delicate blooms 6 to 8 millimeters long. Growing with spreading branches 10 to 30 centimeters tall, it forms tufted clusters with woolly-hairy stems near the base and glandular hairs above. Its basal leaves form a rosette with fine 1-pinnate lobes, featuring linear segments 1 to 6 millimeters long that spread outward from a central axis. The fruit develops as a widely ovoid spherical structure approximately 3 to 4 millimeters long, containing 24 to 30 seeds.

Habitat: Sandy flats, interior, coastal valleys

Bloom period: Mar-May

Elevation: 600-1300 m

Bioregions: SCoR, s SnJV, n WTR.

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