Gilia malior

Scrub gilia, great basin gilia, Great Basin Gilia

Family: Polemoniaceae · Type: annual · Native

Scrub gilia is a California native annual found in the Tehachapi Mountains, southern San Joaquin Valley, southern Coastal Range, western Transverse Ranges including Mount Pinos and Liebre Mountains, southeastern Sierra Nevada, and eastern Mojave Desert in open, sandy, rocky flats at elevations of 300 to 2,600 meters. Flowering from March to June, this plant produces lavender flowers with white-spotted bases and yellow throats, typically 6 to 10.7 millimeters long. Growing with delicate stems 5 to 20 centimeters tall that are tufted-woolly-hairy and gland-dotted, it forms spreading, tufted branches. Its lower leaves develop in a basal rosette with 1-pinnate lobes, each linear lobe 1 to 2 millimeters wide and spreading, while upper leaves become more palmate or entire. The fruit is an ovoid capsule 3.4 to 7 millimeters long with detaching seed valves.

Habitat: Open, sandy, rocky flats

Bloom period: Mar-Jun

Elevation: 300-2600 m

Bioregions: Teh, s SnJV, SCoRI, WTR (Mount Pinos, Liebre Mtns), SNE, DMoj

California counties: Kern, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Inyo, Lassen, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Modoc

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