Helenium bigelovii

Bigelow's sneezeweed

Family: Asteraceae · Type: perennial · Native

Bigelow's sneezeweed is a California native perennial found in the Klamath Ranges, northern Coast Ranges, Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, central western California, Transverse Ranges, and Peninsular Ranges in wet meadows, marshes, bogs, and along streambanks and lake margins at elevations up to 3,400 meters. Flowering from July to August, this plant produces yellow ray flowers with yellow to brown or purple disk flowers in heads 12 to 20 millimeters wide, surrounded by 14 to 20 ray flowers. Growing 30 to 130 centimeters tall with 1 to 3 unbranched or sparingly branched stems that are weakly winged and glabrous or sparsely hairy. Its leaves range from oblanceolate to oblong-elliptic, with basal leaves entire and cauline leaves varying from oblong-elliptic to lanceolate or linear. The fruit is approximately 2 millimeters long with 6 to 8 pappus scales that have awn-like tips.

Habitat: Wet meadows, marshes, bogs, fens, streambanks, lake margins

Bloom period: Jul-Aug

Elevation: < 3400 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoR, CaR, SN, deltaic GV, CW, TR, PR

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