Plagiobothrys greenei

Greene's spiny-nut popcornflower, Greene's Spiny-Nut Popcornflower

Family: Boraginaceae · Type: annual · Native

Greene's spiny-nut popcornflower is a California native annual found in northern California bioregions including North Coast Ranges, Cascade Ranges, Sierra Nevada Foothills, northern Sierra Nevada, Sacramento Valley, and northern San Joaquin Valley in wet grasslands and woodlands at elevations below 900 meters. Flowering from March to May, this plant produces small white flowers with pale yellow appendages in delicate clusters. Growing with decumbent to erect stems 10 to 40 centimeters tall that are strigose (covered in straight, appressed hairs), it forms low-spreading or upright plants. Its cauline leaves are relatively small, measuring 1 to 5 centimeters long, with a delicate texture. The distinctive fruit features numerous slender, barb-tipped prickles covering ovate nutlets 1.5 to 3 millimeters long, giving the plant its unique "spiny-nut" character.

Habitat: Wet sites, grassland, woodland

Bloom period: Mar-May

Elevation: < 900 m

Bioregions: NCoR, CaRF, SNF, n SNH, ScV, n SnJV

California counties: Solano, Butte, Nevada, Calaveras, Tulare, Shasta, Tehama, Placer, Yuba, Tuolumne, Siskiyou, Sonoma, Sacramento, Yolo, Colusa, Glenn, Merced, Madera, Amador, Stanislaus, El Dorado, Lake, Fresno, Napa, Mariposa, San Joaquin, Sutter, Kings

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