Chaenactis glabriuscula (yellow pincushion)

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Chaenactis glabriuscula, photographed by Madeleine Claire — fig. a Madeleine Claire, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-04 / obs. 203602589

Chaenactis glabriuscula, photographed by Millie Basden — fig. b Millie Basden, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198463357

Chaenactis glabriuscula, photographed by velodrome — fig. c velodrome, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202593150

Chaenactis glabriuscula, photographed by Rachel Whitt — fig. d Rachel Whitt, CC0 1.0 / obs. 198001065

Chaenactis glabriuscula, photographed by James C. Davis — fig. g James C. Davis, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 189691365

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 2 botanical countries

Native distribution of Chaenactis glabriuscula, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.

Region	TDWG code	Continent
California	CAL	NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Northwest	MXN

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 498 in flower of 523 examined

40%

100%

79%

96%

99%

98%

92%

Proportion of examined Chaenactis glabriuscula in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	2	5	40%	12% to 77%
Feb	10	10	100%	72% to 100%
Mar	41	52	79%	66% to 88%
Apr	162	168	96%	92% to 98%
May	193	195	99%	96% to 100%
Jun	61	62	98%	91% to 100%
Jul	23	25	92%	75% to 98%
Aug	4	4	too few examined
Sep	2	2	too few examined
Oct	0	0	too few examined
Nov	0	0	too few examined
Dec	0	0	too few examined

Peak flowering in Feb. Each bar is the share of Chaenactis glabriuscula observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 498 of 523 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 5 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 23 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

Chaenactis denudata Nutt.
Chaenactis filifolia Harv.
Chaenactis glabriuscula f. curta H.M.Hall
Chaenactis glabriuscula f. glabriuscula
Chaenactis glabriuscula var. aurea (Greene) Stockw.
Chaenactis glabriuscula var. curta (A.Gray) Jeps.
Chaenactis glabriuscula var. denudata Munz
Chaenactis glabriuscula var. gracilenta (Greene) D.D.Keck
Chaenactis glabriuscula var. tenuifolia H.M.Hall
Chaenactis gracilenta Greene
Chaenactis heterocarpha A.Gray
Chaenactis heterocarpha var. heterocarpha
Chaenactis heterocarpha var. tanacetifolia (A.Gray) A.Gray
Chaenactis lanosa DC.
Chaenactis lanosa var. lanosa
Chaenactis orcuttiana Fernald
Chaenactis orcuttiana (Greene) Parish
Chaenactis tanacetifolia A.Gray
Chaenactis tanacetifolia var. gracilenta (Greene) Stockw.
Chaenactis tanacetifolia var. tanacetifolia
Chaenactis tenuifolia Nutt.
Chaenactis tenuifolia var. orcuttiana Greene
Chaenactis tenuifolia var. tenuifolia

Sourcesevery claim on this page

World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.