Nemacladus sigmoideus

Inyo threadplant

Family: Campanulaceae · Type: annual · Native

Inyo threadplant is a California native annual found in southern Sierra Nevada, Tehachapi, Transverse Ranges, eastern Peninsular Ranges, Sierra Nevada East, Mojave Desert, and northwestern Desert South Coast bioregions in sandy or gravelly soils at elevations of 200 to 2,300 meters. Flowering from April to June, this delicate plant produces white flowers with occasional yellow or lavender highlights, emerging from a strongly zigzag-shaped flowering axis. Growing to 6 to 11 centimeters tall with spreading stems that are purple-brown at the base, it has distinctive diamond-shaped leaves 1.5 to 11 millimeters long. Its leaves are short-hairy, sessile, and can be entire or irregularly toothed, with an intricate growth pattern emerging from the plant's base or slightly above. The fruit is nearly spherical, 2 to 2.8 millimeters long, with a widely acute tip and an acute or oblique base.

Habitat: Sandy or gravelly soils

Bloom period: Apr-Jun

Elevation: 200-2300 m

Bioregions: s SN, Teh, TR, e PR, SNE, DMoj, nw DSon

California counties: San Bernardino, Kern, Inyo, Los Angeles, Imperial, Riverside, Mono, Lassen, Tulare, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Ventura

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