Phacelia rupestris lives among the rocks at lower elevation. The flowers are white with exerted stamens. It is an annual with pubescent, pinnatifid leaves.

Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Annual with stems usually erect or ascending, but often decumbent and weak stemmed, 20-50 cm tall with grayish-pubescent herbage.

Leaves: Mostly coarsely pinnatifid with 3-7 broad lobes or divisions, each lobe coarsely toothed, leaves 6-14 cm long.

Flowers: Spreading scorpioid cymes, sepals linear to oblanceolate, about 3 mm long, campanulate corolla, white, with exserted stamens, 4-5 mm long, lobes entire or nearly so.

Fruits: Ovoid pods, with 4 seeds.

Ecology: Found in canyons or on open ground, often in rocky soils from 3,500-6,500 ft (1067-1981 m); flowers April-June.

Notes: This species is very similar to P. congesta, but can be told apart by the white corolla, where P. congesta has whitish to blue corollas.

Ethnobotany: Unknown, but other species in the genera have uses.

Etymology: Phacelia from Greek phacelo- for bundle, while rupestris means growing among rocks.

Synonyms: Phacelia congesta var. rupestris

Editor: SBuckley, 2010