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Chorizanthe orcuttiana
Also called Orcutt's Spineflower
Chorizanthe orcuttiana is a rare small annual plant in the buckwheat family, Polygonaceae. It is known commonly as Orcutt's spineflower or the San Diego spineflower, and it is endemic to San Diego County, California. The plant is diminutive, and a hand-lens is necessary for proper identification. The plant is very sensitive to temperature and precipitation, and under drought or hot conditions the seeds will not germinate or survive. The plant is visible anywhere from February through July during good rain year, but most years the plant is only visible from April to June. Each minute flower yields one seed.
The plant requires open habitat near the coast, such as sandstone bluffs and openings in maritime chaparral. About 82% to 93% of San Diego County's maritime chaparral habitat has been destroyed for development and damaged by human activity such as recreation; there are just over 3000 acres remaining. All the known occurrences are within five kilometers of the coastline. It grows on soils of white sand which are neutral or somewhat acidic and low in organic material. The substrates originate from iron-rich sandstone.
Narrowleaf spineflower · Irish Hills Spineflower · Twolobe spineflower · Blakley's spineflower · Brittle spineflower · San Luis Obispo spineflower · Wrinkled spineflower · San Francisco spineflower · Diffuse spineflower · Douglas' spineflower · Fringed spineflower · Mendocino spineflower
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Chorizanthe orcuttiana by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
