Oreocarya virginensis

Virgin river oreocarya, Virgin River Cryptantha

Family: Boraginaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Virgin river oreocarya is a California native perennial found in the eastern Sierra Nevada and Mojave Desert bioregions on loose limestone soils at elevations of 840 to 2,450 meters. Flowering from April to June, this plant produces scented white or yellow flowers with a limb 7 to 10 millimeters in diameter. Growing 10 to 40 centimeters tall with multiple stems covered in dense, spreading yellow bristles, it forms a single basal rosette of thick, gray-green leaves. Its leaves are 5 to 12 centimeters long, oblanceolate to spoon-shaped, densely strigose with sparse spreading bristles. The fruit consists of 1 or 2 gray to tan nutlets 3.3 to 4.5 millimeters long with irregular wrinkles and a sharp-angled margin.

Habitat: Loose, limestone soils

Bloom period: Apr-Jun

Elevation: 840-2450 m

Bioregions: SNE, DMoj

California counties: San Bernardino, Inyo, Mono, Sierra

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