Shooting star is one of the most stunning wildflowers we have in Southern California. It is a tall glandular-hairy perennial herb with rosettes of green, spatulate 3" long leaves that appear in December before the plant blooms from January to April.  The flowers are erect to nodding and appear in a terminal umbel at the top of a scape about 16" tall.  The inflorescence is 5-16-flowered with a corolla tube that is dark maroon with a yellow band and five reflexed deeply-cleft lobes that are magenta to whitish.  The anther sacs are yellow with a dark line, and the leaves have crisped margins.  The five stamens and the pistils are grouped close together and point downwards like a sharp beak, contributing to this flower's general likeness to a delicate flying bird.  Shooting stars inhabit damp and grassy places in chaparral, valley grassland and coastal sage scrub below about 2000' and range from the Santa Monica Mts to n. Lower California.

Click here for Latin name derivations: 1) Dodecatheon 2) clevelandii.
Pronunciation: do-deh-KATH-ee-on KLEEV-land-ee-eye.
Click here for Botanical Term Meanings.