Rigiopappus leptocladus

Rigiopappus

Family: Asteraceae · Type: annual · Native

Rigiopappus is a California native annual found in northwestern California, the Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, Central Valley, central western California, western Transverse Ranges, southern California Ranges, and Modoc Plateau in grassy sites and openings among shrubs or trees at elevations of 100 to 2,200 meters. Flowering from April to July, this plant produces yellow flowers often tinged with red or purple, with ray flowers measuring 0.3 to 1 millimeters long and disk flowers in clusters. Growing 5 to 30 centimeters tall with generally erect stems that are minutely hairy and may have branches exceeding the main stem, it develops from a taproot. Its leaves are mostly alternate, narrowly oblanceolate to lance-linear, 9 to 30 millimeters long and 1 to 2 millimeters wide, with entire margins and sparse hair. The fruit is 4 to 5 millimeters long, cylindric to spindle-shaped, and covered in minute coarse hairs with 3 to 5 awl-shaped pappus scales.

Habitat: Grassy sites, openings among shrubs or trees

Bloom period: Apr-Jul

Elevation: 100-2200 m

Bioregions: NW (exc NCo), CaR, SN, GV, CW, WTR, SnGb, MP

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