Lake Amador clarkia

Stems erect, to 100 cm, puberulent. Leaves: petiole 5–30 mm; blade lanceolate to elliptic or ovate, 1–5 cm. Inflorescences open racemes, axis in bud recurved 1–3 nodes distal to open flowers; buds pendent, narrowly obovoid, tip acute. Flowers: floral tube 1.5–2 mm; sepals reflexed individually; corolla rotate, petals lavender-purple, not dark-flecked or spotted, obovate, 6–8 × 3–5 mm, inconspicuously 3-lobed; stamens 8, subequal, subtended by ciliate scales, pollen yellow; ovary shallowly 4-grooved, puberulent; stigma not exserted beyond anthers. Capsules 20–25 mm; pedicel 1–3 mm. Seeds unknown. 2n = 14.

Flowering Jun–Jul. Open coniferous forests; 1000–1500 m; Calif.

Clarkia stellata is known from the southern Cascade–northern Sierra Nevada region, including Lassen, Nevada, Plumas, Shasta, Sierra, and Tehama counties (with unverified reports from Butte and Modoc counties).

Clarkia stellata is probably a self-pollinating deriv­ative of C. mildrediae subsp. lutescens, to judge from pollen color. The two species are readily distinguished by the much smaller flowers of C. stellata and the position of the stigma. Hybrids have low fertility due to chromo­somal rearrangement. Clarkia stellata is mor­phologically very similar to the self-pollinating tetra­ploid C. rhomboidea but can be distinguished from it by yellow pollen and shallowly lobed, unspotted petals.