Phacelia suaveolens

Sweet scented phacelia

Family: Hydrophyllaceae · Type: annual · Native

Sweet scented phacelia is a California native annual found in northern coastal, central Sierra Nevada foothills (Ione), San Francisco Bay, and south-central interior regions in open burns, slopes, chaparral, and closed-cone pine forest at elevations of 200 to 1,700 meters. Flowering from May to August, this aromatic plant produces lavender to purple flowers in narrowly bell-shaped corollas with yellow tube about 7 to 11 millimeters long. Growing 5 to 40 centimeters tall with ascending to erect stems that are simple or branched at the base and short-hairy, it has a delicate, open structure. Its leaves range 10 to 75 millimeters long, widely elliptic to ovate, with toothed or slightly lobed edges that contribute to its distinctive appearance. The small ovoid fruit measures 3 to 5 millimeters and contains 10 to 16 pitted seeds about 1 to 1.5 millimeters in size.

Habitat: Uncommon. Open burns, slopes, chaparral, closed-cone-pine forest

Bloom period: May-Aug

Elevation: 200-1700 m

Bioregions: NCoRI, c SNF (Ione), SnFrB, SCoRI.

California counties: Lake, Santa Clara, San Luis Obispo, Napa, Monterey, Contra Costa, Amador, Santa Cruz, Marin, Solano, Sonoma, Orange, Riverside

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