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Polygonaceae family

San Diego Spineflower Chorizanthe orcuttiana

Native
Early-season nectar — Flowers in a late-winter / early-spring window when few other plants in our catalog bloom — valuable early forage for pollinators (relative to our catalog's bloom coverage).

San Diego Spineflower is an annual wildflower native to the lower 48 states. It blooms Mar – May.

More about this plant

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. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Hardiness
≥ zone 11 derived from its U.S. range
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Lifespan
Annual
In the garden
Herb layer — Sits in the herb of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
The garden year bloom → fruit → fall colour
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Bloom
Bloom (the flower's colour)
Bloom · Mar – May — 27 obs · Herbarium specimens — Park et al. 2023 (CC BY 4.0)
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts Documented caterpillar host

Recorded feeding on Chorizanthe in North America, including:

Hyles lineata · White-Lined Sphinx
Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
Sources for this entry (14) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — native status
[07] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[08] Ecological value — GloBI
[10] Conservation rank — NatureServe Explorer (CC BY)
[11] Federal ESA status — USFWS ECOS (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)
[12] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[13] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
[14] County range — GBIF Open Data — open-licensed occurrences (CC0/CC-BY) → county
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PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

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