Porterella carnosula

Fleshy porterella

Family: Campanulaceae · Type: annual · Native

Fleshy porterella is a California native annual found in the High Sierra Nevada, Great Basin, and Cascade Range Highlands in moist, grassy roadsides and lake and pond edges at elevations of 1,300 to 3,500 meters. Flowering from June to August, this delicate plant produces blue flowers with a distinctive yellow spot on the lower lip, creating an intricate 4 to 5 millimeters long bloom. Growing 2 to 30 centimeters tall with erect stems that may branch from the base, it has a glabrous appearance and emerges from wet ground. Its leaves are narrowly ovate to triangular, sessile, and measure 12 to 15 millimeters long and 3 to 5 millimeters wide, with occasional subtle teeth along the edges. The fruit is a narrow obconic to cylindric structure 5 to 10 millimeters long, with an acute or rounded top.

Habitat: Moist, grassy roadsides, lake and pond edges

Bloom period: Jun-Aug

Elevation: 1300-3500 m

Bioregions: CaRH, SNH, GB

California counties: Modoc, El Dorado, Tulare, Siskiyou, Lassen, Butte, Plumas, Tehama, Fresno, Sierra, Nevada, Placer, Mono, Alpine, Shasta

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