Gilia inconspicua is a small herb with rose pink colored flowers. The leaves and stem are hairy. There is a basal rosette of pinnatifid leaves. Gilia inconspicua is found growing at the bottom of dry creekbeds and in hillside rocks in early spring at lower and middle elevations.

Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Herbaceous annuals, to 32 cm tall, stems branches ascending or spreading, herbage tufted-woolly-hairy below inflorescence, black-glandular above.

Leaves: Alternate, basal and cauline, 1-3 cm long; basal blades 1-2-pinnate-lobed, the lobes 2-10 mm long, linear or rounded, short-pointed, with entire or toothed margins, surfaces tufted-woolly-hairy, borne ascending.

Flowers: Lavender or pinkish with purple spots at the base or in throat, corollas with 3-4 open and spreading, acute-tipped lobes, corollas 6-11 mm long, throats generally yellow, lobes 1.6-2 mm long, calyx 2.6-4.6 mm, glabrous or gland-dotted (or tufted-woolly-hairy in early flowers, stamens and styles exserted, flowers borne in clustered groups of 2-4, becoming open in fruit; on unequal pedicels.

Fruits: Oblong-ovoid capsules 5-8 mm long with detaching valves. Seeds 12-18, yellow to brown and gelatinous when wet.

Ecology: Found on rocky or sandy soils, on slopes, in washes and sagebrush communities, from 4,000-7,500 ft (1219-2286 m); flowering April-June.

Distribution: California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington.

Notes: This species is not yet formally recognized as occurring in Arizona and is not treated in older versions of Kearney and Peebles.

Ethnobotany: Cold, compound infusion of plant taken and used as lotion for fever.

Etymology: Gilia is named after Filippo Luigi Gilii (1756-1821), and inconspicua means inconspicuous.

Synonyms: None

Editor: LCrumbacher2012