Oxytheca parishii

Oxytheca parishii (syn. Acanthoscyphus parishii) is a species of flowering plant in the buckwheat family known by the common name Parish's oxytheca. It is endemic to California, where it is known only from the Transverse Ranges and nearby slopes of the southernmost Central Coast Ranges. It grows in dry and rocky mountain soils. It is an annual herb producing a waxy, hairless, leafless stem up to about 60 centimeters in maximum height in the spring when it is time to flower; during the winter the plant is a small rosette of oval leaves a few centimeters wide. The inflorescence atop the stem is an array of small cymes of flowers, each enveloped in a partially fused cup of bracts tipped in spinelike awns. The flower has six hairy white or pinkish lobes.

Oxytheca parishii
var. goodmaniana

Apparently Secure  (NatureServe)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Plantae
(unranked):
Angiosperms
(unranked):
Eudicots
(unranked):
Core eudicots
Order:
Caryophyllales
Family:
Polygonaceae
Genus:
Oxytheca
Species:
O. parishii
Binomial name
Oxytheca parishii
Synonyms

Acanthoscyphus parishii

There are four varieties of this species.

  • O. p. var. abramsii (Abrams' oxytheca) is limited to the chaparral of mountain slopes in Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties
  • O. p. var. cienegensis (Cienega Seca oxytheca) is known from only about six occurrences in the San Bernardino Mountains
  • O. p. var. goodmaniana (Cushenbury oxytheca) is federally listed as an endangered species; it is known only from loose, rocky, limestone scree on steep north-facing slopes in the San Bernardino Mountains in an area highly disturbed by limestone mining operations[1]
  • O. p. var. parishii is found in sandy, gravelly habitat in the Transverse Ranges

References
  1. Sanders, A. C. Cushenbury Oxytheca. Bureau of Land Management
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