Paronychia ahartii

Ahart's nailwort, ahart's paronychia, Ahart'S Paronychia

Family: Caryophyllaceae · Type: annual · Native

Conservation status: CNPS 1B.1

Ahart's nailwort is a rare (CNPS 1B.1) California native annual found in the Sacramento Valley and Cascade Range Foothills on well-drained, rocky outcrops and vernal pool edges at elevations below 500 meters. Flowering in spring, this tiny plant produces small, inconspicuous flowers with dense white to pale green hairs clustered on the lower half of delicate sepals. Growing with extremely short, nearly hidden stems less than 1.2 centimeters tall, it forms a compact, spherical shape with a slender taproot. Its leaves are narrow and oblanceolate, measuring 2 to 7.5 millimeters long, with scabrous margins and a bristle-tipped green blade. The plant's distinctive sepals have delicate, wavy, thread-like awns 1.5 to 2 millimeters long that spread slightly from the erect sepal tips.

Habitat: Well-drained, rocky outcrops, often vernal pool edges, volcanic upland

Bloom period: Spring

Elevation: < 500 m

Bioregions: CaRF, ScV.

California counties: Shasta, Tehama, Butte

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