Monardella nana

Little monardella

Family: Lamiaceae · Type: shrub · Native

Little monardella is a California native shrub found in the Peninsular Ranges in montane chaparral, woodland, forest, and dry desert-like slopes at elevations of 800 to 2,600 meters. Flowering from May to August, this plant produces white to cream-yellow flowers, occasionally rose-tinged, in clusters 10 to 35 millimeters wide with distinctive white bracts often marked with rose or purple tints. Growing as a low, matted subshrub with stems 5 to 30 centimeters tall, it forms tufted clumps with rhizomes and variable hair patterns. Its leaves are narrowly ovate to round, 5 to 30 millimeters long, ranging from green to ash-gray, with bases that are truncate to wedge-shaped and surfaces that can be glabrous or lightly hairy. The flower's cylindrical corolla tube is 15 to 25 millimeters long, with oblong lobes 4 to 10 millimeters in length, creating a delicate, compact botanical form.

Habitat: Montane chaparral, woodland, forest, dry desert-like slopes

Bloom period: May-Aug

Elevation: 800-2600 m

Bioregions: PR

California counties: Riverside, Imperial, San Diego, San Bernardino, Fresno, Lake, Mendocino, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles

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