Gilia capitata

Bluehead gilia, Bluehead Gilia

Family: Polemoniaceae · Type: annual · Native

Bluehead gilia is a California native annual found in various bioregions across meadows, grasslands, and open woodlands. Flowering from April to July, this plant produces blue to lavender flowers in dense, spherical heads with 25 to 100 individual blooms. Growing 10 to 90 centimeters tall with branched stems that are leafy below the flower clusters, it has a delicate, open structure with multiple stems. Its lower leaves are intricately divided into 5 to 20 millimeter linear lobes, often with white hairs along the leaf axis, while upper leaves become progressively smaller and more reduced. The plant produces small spherical fruits containing up to 25 seeds, adding to its distinctive seed dispersal strategy.

California counties: Los Angeles, Yolo, San Luis Obispo, Riverside, San Diego, Orange, San Bernardino, Kern, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Napa, Amador, Sierra, Shasta, Trinity, Siskiyou, Lake, Tehama, Sonoma, Colusa, Plumas, Tulare, Tuolumne, Del Norte, Humboldt, Sacramento, El Dorado, Butte, Marin, Santa Clara, Fresno, Mendocino, Ventura, Madera, Solano, Nevada, Sutter, Placer, Glenn, Mariposa, Monterey, Alpine, San Francisco, Inyo, Contra Costa, Yuba, Calaveras, Stanislaus, Merced

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