Poteridium annuum
Western burnet
Family: Rosaceae · Type: annual · Native
Western burnet is a native annual herb found in the Klamath Ranges, northern California Ranges, northern Sierra Nevada, northern Coast Ranges, Peninsular Ranges, and Modoc Plateau in open, especially disturbed areas at elevations of 225 to 1,890 meters. Flowering from April to July, this plant produces small clustered flowers in dense cylindric-ovoid spikes 5 to 35 millimeters long. Growing with ascending to erect stems 10 to 70 centimeters tall, it develops a taproot and maintains an open, slender structure. Its alternate leaves are oddly pinnately compound with 4 to 7 leaflets on each side, each leaflet approximately obovate-elliptic and 5 to 20 millimeters long with linear lobes less than two-thirds the way to the midvein. The fruit is a hard, 4-angled hypanthium 2 to 4 millimeters long that wraps around a small achene with slightly wrinkled surfaces.
Habitat: Open, especially disturbed areas
Bloom period: Apr-Jul
Elevation: 225-1890 m
Bioregions: KR, CaRH, n&c SNH, n CCo, PR, MP
California counties: Modoc, Sierra, Nevada, Plumas, Butte, Tehama, Lassen, Siskiyou, Shasta, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, Sacramento, Santa Cruz, Ventura, Placer, San Diego, Calaveras
Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.