Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Small annual, arising from a basal rosette, branching from the base, covered with spreading, appressed hairs.

Leaves: Sparse, simple, reducing in number apically, sessile and slightly clasping at the base, covered with long, strigose hairs, leaf surface shiny green beneath the hairs, sometimes tending to purple at the tips, leaf margins slightly revolute. Basal leaves oblanceolate, to 2.5 cm long.

Flowers: White, small, with 5 small lobes, yellow in the centers, lobes 2-3 mm long and wide. Not flowering near the base.

Fruits: Nutlets thick and cruciform, but still small, to 2 mm, ridged on the margins, pale in color.

Ecology: Found in sagebrush, pi-on-juniper, and ponderosa pine communities, from 5,000-8,500 ft (1524-2591 m), flowers March-May.

Notes: This species is better known as the popcorn flower, look for its strigose bristles to help identify this annual when not in flower, and when flowering, this species is identified by its cruciform, ridged nutlets and apical flowering habit.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Synonyms: None

Editor: LCrumbacher, 2011

Etymology: Plagiobothrys is derived from two Greek words plagios, "oblique or placed sideways," and bothros, "a pit or scar," hence meaning "hollow at the side," and possibly referring to the pitted face of the nutlets or the position of the nutlet attachment scar on P. fulvus, the first known species, while tenella comes from the Latin meaning "quite delicate, dainty".