Taraxia tanacetifolia

Tansy leaf evening primrose

Family: Onagraceae · Type: perennial · Native

Tansy leaf evening primrose is a California native perennial found in the northern Sierra Nevada, Great Basin, and Sierra Nevada in open fields and moist clay slopes at elevations of 700 to 2,500 meters. Flowering from May to July, this plant produces yellow flowers with petals 8 to 23 millimeters long. Growing with spreading or appressed short hairs and reaching heights of up to 50 centimeters, it develops an intricate growth pattern. Its leaves are deeply and irregularly pinnately lobed, measuring 65 to 320 millimeters long with narrow elliptic blades and petioles 10 to 80 millimeters in length. The fruit develops as a long-tapered, leathery structure 7 to 25 millimeters long that becomes swollen with seeds.

Habitat: Open fields, moist slopes, clay soils

Bloom period: May-Jul

Elevation: 700-2500 m

Bioregions: CaR, SN, GB

California counties: Mono, Shasta, Sierra, Plumas, Lassen, Siskiyou, Modoc, Butte, Nevada, Placer, Inyo

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