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Boraginaceae family

Miner's Candle Cryptantha virgata

Native Specialist-bee host

Miner's Candle is a biennial wildflower native to the lower 48 states. It blooms Jun – Aug. A host for pollen-specialist native bees.

More about this plant

Oreocarya virgata, the miner's candle, is a species of flowering plant in the family Boraginaceae, native to the U.S. states of Wyoming and Colorado. It is a biennial herb reaching 0.9 m (3 ft), with white flowers. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Hardiness
≥ zone 6 derived from its U.S. range
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Lifespan
Biennial
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 · Jun – Aug — 122 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 Cryptantha in North America, including:

Ethmia brevistriga Vanessa cardui · Painted Lady
Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
✦ Bees specialist-bee host

Specialist native bees depend on it.

Some native bees are pollen specialists (oligolectic) — they raise young only on pollen from particular plant genera. Cryptantha is a recorded specialist-bee host, so losing it can mean losing the bee that relies on it.

Xerces pollinator conservation →
Specialist hosts from Smith et al. 2024.
Wildlife & visitors 11 nectaring

Open records of who else uses Miner's Candle — a generalist food-web signal, kept separate from the keystone Ecological Value.

Interaction records (observations, not exhaustive) from GloBI → (CC0). Counts are distinct species; names are the most-recorded. Common names from Wikidata (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 (12) 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
[06] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[07] Ecological value — GloBI · Smith et al. 2024 (CC BY)
[09] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[10] Wildlife & visitors — GloBI — Global Biotic Interactions (CC0)
[12] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
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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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