Oreocarya confertiflora

Yellow-flowered oreocarya, Yellow-Flowered Cryptantha

Family: Boraginaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Yellow-flowered oreocarya is a California native perennial found in southern Sierra Nevada, San Bernardino Mountains, Sierra Nevada east of Sierra Nevada, and Desert Mountains in dry, rocky soils at elevations of 1,050 to 3,100 meters. Flowering from May to July, this plant produces yellow flowers with a corolla limb 8 to 12 millimeters in diameter, forming dense, head-like clusters. Growing with multiple erect, gray-green stems 13 to 45 centimeters tall that are tomentose at the base and strigose with sparse bristles above, it develops a woody, branched caudex. Its numerous basal rosette leaves are 3 to 12 centimeters long, oblanceolate, gray-green, and densely covered with strigose hairs and bulbous-based bristles. The fruit consists of four smooth, gray, somewhat shiny nutlets 3.5 to 4 millimeters long with sharp-angled margins.

Habitat: Common. Dry, rocky soils

Bloom period: May-Jul

Elevation: 1050-3100(3350) m

Bioregions: s SNH, SnBr, SNE, DMtns

California counties: Inyo, San Bernardino, Mono, Tulare, Kern

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