Madia citrigracilis

Shasta tarweed

Family: Asteraceae · Type: annual · Native

Shasta tarweed is a California native annual found in the Cascade Range and Modoc Plateau in forest or scrub openings at elevations of 1,400 to 1,900 meters. Flowering from June to August, this plant produces pale yellow or green-yellow ray flowers with dark purple disk flowers in open, flat-topped clusters. Growing 25 to 60 centimeters tall with coarse to soft hairy stems that are glandular and often have lateral branches exceeding the main stem, it develops a distinctive branching habit. Its leaves are lanceolate to linear, 3 to 15 centimeters long and 2 to 14 millimeters wide, with a variable texture. The ray fruits are compressed, turning black or brown, occasionally mottled, and appear mostly beakless.

Habitat: Openings in forest or scrub

Bloom period: Jun-Aug

Elevation: 1400-1900+ m

Bioregions: CaRH, MP

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