Salvia carduacea

Thistle sage

Family: Lamiaceae · Type: annual · Native

Thistle sage is a California native annual found in the San Joaquin Valley, eastern San Francisco Bay Area, southern Coast Ranges, southwestern California, and western deserts in sandy or gravelly soils at elevations below 1,400 meters. Flowering from March to May, this plant produces lavender to blue-white flowers with distinctive spiny bracts up to 5 centimeters long in compact clusters 1.5 to 3 centimeters wide. Growing 10 to 100 centimeters tall with white-woolly stems, it develops an erect, somewhat branching form. Its basal leaves are oblanceolate, deeply dissected with wavy, short-spiny margins, measuring 3 to 10 centimeters long and creating a delicate, intricate foliage pattern. The plant produces small tan to gray fruits flecked with lighter markings, each about 2.5 millimeters long.

Habitat: Sandy or gravelly soils

Bloom period: Mar-May

Elevation: < 1400 m

Bioregions: Teh, SnJV, e SnFrB, SCoR, SW, w D

California counties: Kern, Inyo, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Riverside, San Diego, San Benito, Tulare, Fresno, Ventura, Monterey, Merced, Yolo, San Joaquin, Kings, Contra Costa, Stanislaus, Madera, Alameda, Orange, Santa Clara

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