Tonella tenella

Lesser baby innocence

Family: Plantaginaceae · Type: annual · Native

Lesser baby innocence is a California native annual found in the Klamath Ranges, northern Coast Ranges, Cascade Range, northern Sierra Nevada High Country, and San Francisco Bay Area in moist, shaded places within chaparral, oak, and mixed woodland at elevations below 1,600 meters. Flowering from March to June, this delicate plant produces white and blue to violet flowers with purple spots, each small corolla measuring just 2 to 2.5 millimeters long. Growing with ascending stems 5 to 30 centimeters tall, it develops slender branches with soft, shaggy-hairy leaves. Its leaves transition from petioled and ovate to round near the stem base, becoming sessile and potentially three-lobed in the upper portions, with a soft, hairy surface. The plant produces tiny fruits 2 to 2.5 millimeters long, containing a single seed in each chamber.

Habitat: Moist, shaded places in chaparral, oak and mixed woodland

Bloom period: Mar-Jun

Elevation: < 1600 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoR, CaR, n SNH, SnFrB

California counties: Humboldt, Trinity, Lake, Mendocino, Sonoma, Santa Clara, Siskiyou, Tehama, Napa, Butte, Contra Costa, San Benito, Glenn, Shasta, Colusa, Del Norte, Placer, Marin, El Dorado, Alameda, Solano, Yolo, Santa Cruz

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