Phacelia distans

Common phacelia

Family: Hydrophyllaceae · Type: annual · Native

Common phacelia is a native annual found in southern North Coast Ranges, northern and southern Sierra Nevada Foothills, southern Sierra Nevada, Sutter Buttes, San Joaquin Valley, Central West, Southwest, eastern Sierra Nevada, and Desert regions in clay to rocky soils and slopes at elevations below 2,700 meters. Flowering from March to May, this plant produces blue or white flowers 6 to 9 millimeters long, with distinctive dark lavender spots in the throat when blue and no spots when white. Growing 5 to 80 centimeters tall with decumbent to erect stems that are simple or branched at the base, the plant has a sparse, glandular hairiness. Its leaves are 20 to 100 millimeters long, typically 1 to 2 times compound with toothed segments. The fruit is small, approximately 2 to 3.1 millimeters long, nearly spherical to oblong and slightly puberulent.

Habitat: Common. Clay to rocky soils, slopes

Bloom period: Mar-May

Elevation: < 2700 m

Bioregions: s NCoR, n&amps SNF, s SNH, ScV (Sutter Buttes), SnJV, CW, SW, SNE, D

California counties: San Bernardino, San Diego, Riverside, San Luis Obispo, Kern, Los Angeles, Ventura, Inyo, Sonoma, Imperial, Santa Barbara, Orange, Monterey, San Mateo, Marin, San Benito, Stanislaus, San Francisco, Solano, Merced, Alameda, Contra Costa, Fresno, Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, Sutter, Mendocino, San Joaquin, Colusa, Tulare, Shasta, Lake, Napa, Sacramento, Butte, Tehama, Glenn, Madera, Kings, Mono

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