| Southwestern Gilia |
| Gilia austro-occidentalis |
| Family: Polemoniaceae (Phlox) |
| Flowers — color: purple, size: 1/8", type: 5 petals |
I found this small maze of brown stems and a few blue spots late in the afternoon. When I got home and checked my photos on the computer, none of the tiny flowers was in focus. So I hiked back at 7 PM to find every flowers was closed tight and invisible. The next day at noon I had more success.
The Southwestern Gilia flower is tubular with five flaring petals about 1/8" wide. Five blue anthers sit on white stamens above the flower's throat. The petals start closing at 4 PM. Blooms form a loose irregular cluster at the end of a stem. Parts of a dead flower may resemble a tan flower.
Habit:
Southwestern Gilia is an annual with a basal rosette of leaves, but these had faded late in their season. Several green stems rise and branch from this base and bear the flowers. The stems have glandular hairs that seem to hold lots of sand, as shown in photos above. This plant has a very limited natural range: Santa Barbara County.
The Jepson Herbarium, a major resource on California plants [they put the hyphen in this species name], could not find any expert-verified photos of Southwestern Gilia. The appearance of this gilia resembles G. clivorum, the purplespot gilia, that also grows in Lompoc, but the flowers' arrangement and anther shape clearly differ. Sunny sandy open areas.
Another relative apears here, blue field gilia, G. capitatum, has a much larger form.