Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Small herbaceous and pubescent forb.

Leaves: Leaves alternate, simple, entire, pinnatifid or pinnate.

Flowers: Flowers borne in mostly 1-sided raceme like inflorescences, corollas funnelform or campanulate, with wrinkled or folded tubes, styles 2-cleft

Fruits: large, thick-walled pods, cylindrical or ellipsoid with slight constrictions between the seeds, seeds several, bright red.

Ecology: Found in moist soils in coniferous forests and along streams, from 4,000-9,500 ft (1219-2896 m); flowering April-October.

Notes: This species is now what was formerly known as P. magellanica, which was also considered as parent species for P. heterophylla in Kearney and Peebles, it is best to use other sources in addition to Kearney and Peebles when identifying this species. (See P. heterophylla for a more in-depth discussion).

Ethnobotany: There is no specific use recorded for the species, but the genus was boiled and used for greens.

Editor: SBuckley 2010

Etymology: Phacelia is based on the Greek phakelos, meaning "cluster," and alluding to the densely crowded flower spikes of most species of the genus, while egena means poor, needy, indigent, of unknown application.

Plant: Perennial 15-60 cm; stem ascending to erect, stiff-hairy, not glandular

Leaves: mostly basal; blade 100-250 mm, > petiole, lanceolate to oblanceolate; basal dissected, segments 7-11(15); cauline generally entire

INFLORESCENCE: cyme, generally dense, coiled, generally 1-sided; pedicels generally short

Flowers: pedicels 0.5-4 mm; calyx lobes 4-6 mm, 8-12 mm in fruit, linear to oblanceolate; corolla 5-9 mm, bell-shaped, white to cream, scales oblong; stamens 9-14 mm, exserted, hairy; style 9-15 mm, exserted

Fruit: capsule, ± 3 mm, ovoid, stiff-hairy; Seeds 1-2, 2.5-3 mm, pitted in vertical rows, oblong to spheric, generally brownish

Misc: Slopes, streambanks, flats, chaparral, woodland; 50-2500 m.