More than 200 annual wildflowers are native to the land within Chico's city limits, spanning at least 34 families: the amaranth family, carrot family, aster family, borage family, mustard family, bellflower family, caper family, pink family, goosefoot family, pygmyweed family, dodder family, waterwort family, spurge family, pea family, gentian family, geranium family, mint family, meadowfoam family, flax family, false pimpernel family, loosestrife family, mallow family, evening-primrose family, broomrape family, poppy family, lopseed family, plantain family, phlox family, knotweed family, purslane family, buttercup family, madder family, nightshade family, and valerian family. Chico's native annual wildflowers include the following species.1
Aster Family
blow wives annual mountain dandelion annual water aster (also called slimaster) sticktight (also called devil's beggartick) common stickyseed Klamath Western rosinweed Butte County rosinweed rosinweed Canadian horseweed false daisy Western marsh cudweed (lowland cudweed) hayfield tarweed (also called woodrush tarweed) Fitch's tarweed glandular hareleaf branched hareleaf California goldfields smooth goldfields Fremont's tidytips common tidytips dwarf lessingia slenderstem lessingia wand lessingia California cottonrose lemon-scented tarweed common tarweed slender tarweed slender cottontop Sierra foothill silverpuffs Douglas' silverpuffs short woollyheads Oregon woollyheads slender woolly marbles spiny cockleburr rough cockleburr
Bellflower Family
Hoover's calicoflower bristled calicoflower (also called doublehorn calicoflower) toothed calicoflower harlequin calicoflower folded calicoflower (also called horned calicoflower) flatface calicoflower Sierra bluecup
Borage Family
Eastwood's fiddleneck tarweed fiddleneck common fiddleneck Clearwater popcornflower Milo Baker's popcornflower beaked popcornflower small baby blue eyes (also called canyon baby blue eyes) littlefoot nemophila (also called meadow baby blue eyes) little combseed Austin's popcornflower bracted popcornflower valley popcornflower common popcornflower sculptured popcornflower Greene's popcornflower rusty popcornflower scribe popcornflower Shasta popcornflower vernal pool popcornflower (also called stalked popcornflower)
Broomrape Family
valley tassels (also called narrowleaf owl's clover) purple owl's clover foothill cutleaf owl's clover butter 'n' eggs (also called johnny tuck) dwarf owl's clover
Evening-Primrose Family
glandular fairyfan slender godetia Mildred's farewell-to-spring winecup godetia forest farewell-to-spring mountain garland (also called elegant farewell-to-spring) gunsight fairyfan tall annual willowherb (also called panicled willowherb) selfing spike-primrose smooth spike-primrose narrowleaf spike-primrose
Knotweed Family
knotweed spineflower starlet spineflower wickerstem buckwheat Bidwell's knotweed California knotweed
Lopseed Family
yellow and white monkeyflower Congdon's monkeyflower brownies (also called purple mouse ears) shieldbract monkeyflower Kellogg's monkeyflower Layne's monkeyflower Torrey's monkeyflower tricolor monkeyflower
Mint Family
veiny monardella mustang mint Douglas' pogogyne Sacramento mesamint vinegarweed oblong blue curls (also called mountain blue curls)
Mustard Family
common sandweed spring draba shining pepperweed prostrate pepperweed hairy lacepod (also called sand fringepod) showy fringepod (also called ribbed fringepod)
Pea Family
Gambel's dwarf milkvetch depauperate milkvetch foothill shortpod deervetch (also called colchita) Spanish clover Chilean bird's foot trefoil chick lupine sky lupine Mount Diablo lupine (also called fatpod lupine) Indian rancheria clover foothill tree clover cowbag clover (also called dwarf pale sack clover) pinpoint clover hairy clover (also called maiden clover or smallhead field clover) fewflower clover (also called mini-tomcat clover) whitetip clover (also called variegated clover) tomcat clover
Phlox Family
mountain trumpet globe gilia (also called bluehead gilia) bird's eye gilia true babystars whiskerbrush thread linanthus evening snow variable linanthus slender phlox Tehama pincushionplant needleleaf pincushionplant (also called interwoven navarretia) Bridges' pincushionplant white headed pincushionplant adobe pincushionplant downy purple pincushionplant marigold pincushionplant sticky pincushionplant
Plantain Family
spurred snapdragon purple Chinese pagodas few-flowered blue-eyed Mary bractless hedgehyssop hairy purslane speedwell
Spurge Family
ribseed spurge Contura Creek spurge thymeleaf spurge doveweed warty spurge
Other Families
mat amaranth (also called prostrate pigweed) Powell's amaranth purple ammannia (also called red ammania) silverscale tractscale (also called bractscale or saltscale) Texas bergia red maids Monterey centaury charming centaury (also called canchalagua) desert goosefoot (also called meadw goosefoot) Oregon timwort Utah narrowleaf miner's lettuce (also called streambank springbeauty) miner's lettuce water pygmyweed sand pygmyweed San Joaquin dodder (also called chaparral dodder) bigseed alfalfa dodder five-angle dodder (also called Western field dodder) American wild carrot (also called rattlesnake weed) foothill tufted poppy frying pans common bedstraw (also called goosegrass, stickywilly, or cleavers) roughfruit corn bedstraw sweetscent bedstraw Carolina geranium California dwarf flax white meadowfoam common meadowfoam Butte County meadowfoam yellowseed false pimpernel California fairypoppy California sandwort Douglas' sandwort water chickweed (also called annual water miner's lettuce) bristly mousetail little mousetail Indian tobacco valley broomrape (also called hillside broomrape) sharpleaf groundcherry cutleaf groundcherry prairie longleaf plantain foothill dotseed plantain cream cups longspur seablush white longhorn seablush sandyseed clammyweed lowland rotala sticky annual pearlwort Western pearlwort Sierra mock stonecrop Point Reyes checkerbloom valley checkerbloom hairy checkerbloom
Footnotes
1. CalFlora.org