Globe gilia, also known as blue field gilia or blue-headed gilia, is a slender branched annual that is often seen after fires.  It grows to 36" high, is leafy mainly from the lower part of the stem, and may be glabrous, glandular or floccose.  The leaves are alternate, pinnately or bipinnately dissected, and the axils and midribs generally have white hairs.  The flowers arise in a dense, multi-flowered head at the terminus of a 1-10" leafless stem. Each globular head is made up of 50-100 individual flowers with white to light-blue or violet 5-lobed corollas.  The calyx is greenish to purplish-brown and lightly hairy, the acuminate tips slightly recurved.  There are five exserted stamens and three united carpels which form a single pistil, also exserted.  Globe gilia may be seen in open sandy or rocky places to 6000' in coastal sage scrub, chaparral and yellow pine forest ranging from Santa Barbara Co. inland to the Tehachapis, the San Gabriels and San Bernardinos, the Santa Ana Mts and Baja.  It blooms from April to July.

Click here for Latin name derivations: 1) Gilia 2) capitata 3) abrotanifolia.
Pronunciation: JEE-lee-a ka-pi-TAY-ta ab-ro-tan-i-FO-lee-a.
Click here for Botanical Term Meanings.