Phacelia californica

California phacelia

Family: Hydrophyllaceae · Type: perennial · Native

California phacelia is a California native perennial found in northern coastal, central coastal, and San Francisco Bay Area bioregions in bluffs, open slopes, road cuts, chaparral, and woodland at elevations below 1,000 meters. Flowering from March to September, this plant produces blue to lavender (occasionally white) bell-shaped flowers 4 to 7 millimeters long with a limb 4 to 6 millimeters in diameter. Growing 15 to 90 centimeters tall with decumbent to erect stems that are densely covered in stiff hairs, it has a distinctive growth habit. Its leaves are mostly basal with compound blades 50 to 200 millimeters long, typically containing 3 to 7 leaflets, with prominent veins that are deeply impressed into the leaf surface. The fruit is a narrow, stiff-hairy structure 3 to 4 millimeters long, containing 1 to 2 pitted seeds.

Habitat: Bluffs, open slopes, road cuts, chaparral, woodland

Bloom period: Mar-Sep

Elevation: < 1000 m

Bioregions: NCo, NCoRO, CCo, SnFrB.

California counties: Mendocino, Sonoma, Marin, San Francisco, Contra Costa, Napa, San Mateo, Alameda, Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Tulare, Plumas, Fresno, Sacramento, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Sutter, El Dorado, Nevada

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