Lithophragma affine

Common woodland star

Family: Saxifragaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Common woodland star is a California native perennial found in the Klamath Ranges, northern Coast Ranges, central Sierra Nevada, Sutter Buttes, northern San Joaquin Valley, northern Central Coast, San Francisco Bay Area, southern Coast Ranges, southern California, southern Channel Islands, Transverse Ranges, and Peninsular Ranges in open, grassy slopes at elevations below 2,000 meters. Flowering from March to April, this plant produces white flowers with three-lobed petals 5 to 13 millimeters long, arranged in clusters of 3 to 15 blooms. Growing 10 to 60 centimeters tall with delicate, upright stems, it develops from a basal rosette of leaves. Its basal leaves are distinctively divided into 3 to 5 lobes with sharp-tipped teeth, creating an intricate and delicate foliage pattern. The plant's flowers feature a unique obconic hypanthium that is slightly inflated, with petals that are ovate-elliptic and precisely three-lobed at the tip.

Habitat: Open, grassy slopes

Bloom period: Mar-Apr

Elevation: < 2000 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoRO, NCoRI, c SN, ScV (Sutter Buttes), n SnJV (Antioch), n CCo, SnFrB, SCoR, SCo (inland), s ChI, TR, PR

California counties: Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, San Bernardino, Orange, Monterey, Solano, Napa, Contra Costa, Tulare, Santa Barbara, San Benito, Placer, Sonoma, Nevada, Alameda, El Dorado, Kern, Lake, Mendocino, Marin, Del Norte, Calaveras, Amador, Merced, Mariposa, Humboldt, Madera, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Tuolumne, Ventura, Plumas, Santa Cruz, Siskiyou, Stanislaus, Trinity, Colusa, Butte, Glenn, Sutter, Tehama, Shasta, Sacramento, Fresno, Sierra, Yolo, Yuba

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