Slender Woollyheads

Psilocarphus tenellus has a bioregional distribution that ranges from Baja California north through California and southern Oregon; there a disjunctive populations in Washington State, northern Idaho and on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. This annual is a vernal pool specialist that is often found in grasslands such as prototypical habitats on the Jepson Prairie and Lake Hennessey perimeter areas in California.

Also known by the common name of Slender woolly marbles, this plant is greenish to grayish in color. The growth form is ascending to more or less prostrate. The spatulate to obovate, capitular leaves are generally spreading, mostly not appressed to heads; the leaves are widest in their distal third, with lengths about two to five times widths. Heads are more or less spheric, with the largest of characteristic size 3.o to 5.5 millimeters.