Gilia tricolor subsp. tricolor

Family: Polemoniaceae · Type: annual · Native

bird's-eye gilia is a California native annual found in the North Coast Ranges, Sierra Nevada Foothills, San Joaquin Valley, San Francisco Bay Area, southern Coast Ranges, and Sacramento Valley in open grasslands and hills at elevations below 1,200 meters. Flowering from March to May, this plant produces bright flowers with a distinctive color pattern featuring a yellow to orange proximal throat, distal tube, and corolla lobes with a striking ring of dark purple spots. Growing with delicate stems up to several centimeters tall, it forms dense to occasionally open clusters of two to five flowers. Its leaves are finely divided, typical of the gilia genus, with a complex structure that supports the plant's intricate floral display. The flower's unique three-color pattern—yellow, orange, and deep purple—makes it a particularly eye-catching species in California's spring grasslands.

Habitat: Open, grassland, hills, valleys

Bloom period: (Jan-Feb)Mar--May

Elevation: < 1200 m

Bioregions: CaRF, NCoR, SNF, SnJV, SnFrB, SCoR, ScV (Sutter Buttes).

California counties: Kern, Calaveras, San Joaquin, Butte, Los Angeles, Alameda, Tulare, Yolo, Amador, Madera, Sacramento, Sutter, Merced, Fresno, Colusa, Tehama, Glenn, Sonoma, Stanislaus, Santa Clara, Lake, Mendocino, San Benito, Contra Costa, San Luis Obispo, Napa, Solano, San Mateo, Humboldt, Placer, Mariposa, Tuolumne, Shasta, Santa Barbara, San Diego, El Dorado, Monterey

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