Lasthenia burkei

Burke's goldfields, Burke's Goldfields

Family: Asteraceae · Type: annual · Native

Conservation status: CNPS 1B.1 · Endangered

Burke's goldfields is a rare (CNPS 1B.1) California native annual found in southern North Coast Ranges Interior, including southern Mendocino, southern Lake, and northeastern Sonoma counties, in vernal pools and wet meadows at elevations below 500 meters. Flowering from April to June, this plant produces bright yellow ray flowers less than 6 millimeters long in distinctive hemispheric or obconic flower heads. Growing to less than 30 centimeters tall with simple or freely branched stems that are hairy, it forms delicate, linear leaves up to 5 centimeters long, which may be entire or have pinnate lobes. Its leaves are glabrous or slightly hairy, with flower heads featuring 7 to 16 persistent, hairy phyllaries surrounding a dome-shaped receptacle. The fruit is small, less than 1.5 millimeters long, club-shaped, and black to gray with generally one long awn and several short scales.

Habitat: Vernal pools, wet meadows

Bloom period: Apr-Jun

Elevation: < 500 m

Bioregions: s NCoRI (s Mendocino, s Lake, ne Sonoma cos.).

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