Navarretia mellita

Family: Polemoniaceae · Type: annual · Native

Honey navarretia is a California native annual found in northwestern California, central and northern Sierra Nevada foothills, San Francisco Bay Area, southern Coast Ranges, and western Transverse Ranges in open, wet, sandy or gravelly areas at elevations of 90 to 1,200 meters. Flowering from May to July, this plant produces light blue flowers with white throats in delicate heads approximately 5 to 7 millimeters long. Growing with erect stems 5 to 20 centimeters tall, it develops many ascending branches that are distinctively glandular-hairy. Its leaves are pinnate-lobed with linear segments, with basal leaves having longer axes and cauline leaves featuring shorter, wider axes. The plant is characterized by an unusual strong but not skunk-like odor and intricate palmately branched bracts with an expanded base and distinctive forked lateral lobes.

Habitat: Open, wet, sandy or gravelly areas, chaparral

Bloom period: May-Jul

Elevation: 90-1200 m

Bioregions: NCoR, c SNF (Tuolumne Co.), n SNF (Calaveras Co.), SnFrB, SCoR, WTR.

California counties: Humboldt, Lake, Monterey, Alameda, Santa Cruz, Solano, Mendocino, Contra Costa, Marin, Sonoma, Napa, Ventura, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Tehama, Glenn, Calaveras, Santa Barbara, San Benito, Tuolumne, San Luis Obispo, Trinity, Madera, Amador, Yolo, Colusa

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