Phacelia fremontii

Fremont's phacelia

Family: Hydrophyllaceae · Type: annual · Native

Fremont's phacelia is a California native annual found in southern Sierra Nevada, San Joaquin Valley, eastern San Francisco Bay Area, southern Coast Ranges, Transverse Ranges, eastern Sierra Nevada, and Mojave Desert in sandy or gravelly soils, scrub, and grassland at elevations below 2,900 meters. Flowering from March to June, this plant produces blue to pink or violet flowers 7 to 15 millimeters long with a yellow throat and delicate funnel-shaped corolla. Growing 5 to 30 centimeters tall with decumbent to erect stems that branch at the base and are softly hairy with glandular upper portions. Its leaves are 15 to 50 millimeters long, predominantly basal, with deeply lobed or compound blades that have rounded segments in an oblong to oblanceolate shape. The fruit is an ovoid structure 4 to 6 millimeters long, covered with short stiff hairs and containing 10 to 18 small seeds.

Habitat: Sandy or gravelly soils, scrub, grassland

Bloom period: Mar-Jun

Elevation: < 2900 m

Bioregions: s SN, SnJV, e SnFrB, SCoRI, TR, SNE, DMoj

California counties: Inyo, San Bernardino, Kern, Los Angeles, Fresno, Ventura, Riverside, San Luis Obispo, Tulare, Santa Barbara, Mono, Merced, San Joaquin, San Benito, Kings

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