Johnstonella holoptera

Winged johnstonella, Winged Cryptantha

Family: Boraginaceae · Type: annual · Native

Conservation status: CNPS 4.3

Winged johnstonella is a California native annual herb found in eastern Mojave Desert and Sonoran Desert regions in gravelly and rocky habitats at elevations of 50 to 1,220 meters. Flowering from January to May, this plant produces yellow-appendaged white flowers in small raceme-like clusters with flat corolla limbs approximately 2 to 3 millimeters in diameter. Growing 10 to 60 centimeters tall with an erect central stem branching throughout, it has a coarse structure occasionally woody at the base and covered in spreading strigose bristles. Its leaves range from 3 to 6 centimeters long, with basal and lower cauline leaves being elliptic to lanceolate and short-petioled, while upper leaves are sessile and sparse-bristly. The distinctive fruit consists of four nutlets with pale tubercles and a flat to wide non-papery wing margin, each nutlet 1.8 to 2.5 millimeters long.

Habitat: Gravelly to rocky soils, washes, slopes, ridges

Bloom period: Jan-May

Elevation: 50-1220 m

Bioregions: e DMoj, DSon

California counties: Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Imperial, Inyo, Los Angeles, Kern

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