Kingdom Plantae Family Polygonaceae Scientific name Oxytheca parishii | Order Caryophyllales Genus Oxytheca Rank Species | |
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Similar Erigeron parishii, Astragalus albens, Eriogonum kennedyi, Acanthomintha ilicifolia, Eriogonum ovalifolium | ||
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.
There are four varieties of this species.