Monolopia major

Cupped monolopia

Family: Asteraceae · Type: annual · Native

Cupped monolopia is a California native annual found in northern coastal interior, southwestern Sacramento Valley, northern San Joaquin Valley, San Francisco Bay Area, northern coastal ranges, and northern Transverse Ranges in grasslands and clay soils at elevations of 10 to 1,100 meters. Flowering from February to July, this plant produces cream to white ray flowers 8 to 20 millimeters long with distinctive three-lobed petals. Growing with erect or ascending stems that branch throughout, it forms delicate plants 10 to 40 centimeters tall. Its leaves are distributed along the stem, with flower heads emerging on peduncles up to 13 centimeters long and forming a unique cup-shaped involucre with triangular lobes. The fruits are small, disk-shaped, and slightly compressed with four distinct angles.

Habitat: Grassland, vertic clay, occasionally serpentine

Bloom period: Feb-Jul

Elevation: 10-1100 m

Bioregions: NCoRI, sw ScV, n SnJV, SnFrB, n SCoR, n WTR.

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