Plagiobothrys nothofulvus

Rusty popcornflower, foothill snowdrops, Foothill Snowdrops

Family: Boraginaceae · Type: annual · Native

Rusty popcornflower is a California native annual found in the California Floristic Province in open woodland and grassland at elevations generally below 1,550 meters. Flowering from March to May, this plant produces small white flowers with yellow appendages in delicate clusters. Growing with reddish, spreading stems 20 to 70 centimeters tall that have a rough, staining texture, it develops as an erect plant with a basal rosette of leaves. Its leaves range from 3 to 10 centimeters long, with a few alternate cauline leaves along the stem. The plant produces three small, round-ovate nutlets approximately 2 millimeters long with narrow ridges and a distinctive scar near the middle.

Habitat: Common; open woodland, grassland

Bloom period: Mar-May

Elevation: generally < 1550 m

Bioregions: CA-FP

California counties: Humboldt, Los Angeles, Kern, Santa Clara, Placer, Riverside, El Dorado, Fresno, Glenn, Lake, San Luis Obispo, Napa, Tulare, Contra Costa, Santa Barbara, Mariposa, Monterey, Sonoma, San Diego, Orange, Trinity, Sacramento, Tuolumne, Mendocino, San Bernardino, San Joaquin, Calaveras, San Benito, Ventura, Marin, Siskiyou, Merced, Butte, Solano, Madera, Colusa, Yolo, Santa Cruz, Stanislaus, San Mateo, Alameda, Tehama, Shasta, Sutter, Amador, Nevada, Inyo, Yuba

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