Cordylanthus mollis ssp. mollis

Cordylanthus mollis ssp. mollis NatureServe Explorer Species Reports — NatureServe Explorer is a source for authoritative conservation information on more than 50,000 plants, animals and ecological communtities of the U.S and Canada. NatureServe Explorer provides in-depth information on rare and endangered species, but includes common plants and animals too. NatureServe Explorer is a product of NatureServe in collaboration with the Natural Heritage Network.

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Both subspecies are rare, one treated as a federally listed endangered species. In general this is a grayish or purplish green annual coated in long whitish hairs, sometimes bristly and glandular. The woolly inflorescence is a spike of club-shaped white flowers enclosed in densely hairy sepals.

Subspecies Chloropyron molle subsp. hispidus, the hispid bird’s beak, grows in alkaline and saline soils of marshes and ‘playas’ (a local name for inland salt flats) in scattered locations throughout the Central Valley. Most of its habitat in the southern valley has been turned over for agriculture, leading to the extirpation of most of its populations there. The even less common Ch. molle subsp. molle, known by the common name soft bird’s beak, is only known from the coastal salt marshes and swamps of the inner San Francisco Bay Area and delta. It is federally listed as an endangered species.Both subspecies are rare, one treated as a federally listed endangered species. In general this is a grayish or purplish green annual coated in long whitish hairs, sometimes bristly and glandular. The woolly inflorescence is a spike of club-shaped white flowers enclosed in densely hairy sepals.