Phacelia grandiflora

Giant flowered phacelia

Family: Hydrophyllaceae · Type: annual · Native

Giant flowered phacelia is a California native annual found in southern California coastal areas, Channel Islands, southern slopes of the Transverse Ranges, southern Sierra Glacial Basin, and western Peninsular Ranges in open, sandy chaparral and coastal sage scrub habitats at elevations below 1,150 meters. Flowering from April to June, this plant produces lavender to white flowers with a distinctive lavender-spotted white throat, measuring 25 to 40 millimeters in diameter. Growing with erect, coarse stems 30 to 200 centimeters tall that are sparsely stiff-hairy and glandular, it spreads with simple or branched upper stems. Its leaves are widely ovate to nearly round, measuring 30 to 200 millimeters long with irregular tooth edges. The fruit is an ovoid structure 8 to 14 millimeters long, containing 80 to 120 small, shallowly pitted seeds.

Habitat: Open, sandy, +- moist areas, chaparral and coastal-sage scrub, often in washes or burns

Bloom period: Apr-Jun

Elevation: < 1150 m

Bioregions: SCo, ChI (rare), s slope WTR, s slope SnGb, w PR

California counties: San Diego, Ventura, Los Angeles, Mendocino, Santa Barbara, Riverside, Orange, Fresno, San Bernardino, Alameda, San Luis Obispo

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