Cryptantha ambigua(A.Gray) Greene

basin cryptantha

WFO wfo-0000627312 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Cryptantha ambigua, photographed by Tim Messick
fig. a Tim Messick, CC BY 4.0 / 2019-08-01 / obs. 58038828
Cryptantha ambigua, photographed by Matt Berger
fig. b Matt Berger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 146479850
Cryptantha ambigua, photographed by Tim Messick
fig. c Tim Messick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 58038833
Cryptantha ambigua, photographed by Matt Berger
fig. d Matt Berger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 146479879
Cryptantha ambigua, photographed by Tim Messick
fig. e Tim Messick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 58038835
Cryptantha ambigua, photographed by Matt Berger
fig. f Matt Berger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 146479822
Cryptantha ambigua, photographed by Matt Berger
fig. g Matt Berger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 146479801
Cryptantha ambigua, photographed by Tim Messick
fig. h Tim Messick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 58038823

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.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
01112274
Filed as
Cryptantha ambigua (A.Gray) Greene
Det. by
I. M. Johnston 1946-01-01
Collected
B. Maguire 1946-06-12
Origin
US
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 11 botanical countries

Regions where Cryptantha ambigua is native: British Columbia, California, Colorado, Idaho, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming British ColumbiaCaliforniaColoradoIdahoMassachusettsMontanaNevadaOregonUtahWashingtonWyoming
Native distribution of Cryptantha ambigua, 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.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
British Columbia BRC NORTHERN AMERICA
California CAL
Colorado COL
Idaho IDA
Massachusetts MAS
Montana MNT
Nevada NEV
Oregon ORE
Utah UTA
Washington WAS
Wyoming WYO

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.

Also published as 7 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.

  • Cryptantha ambigua f. robustior Brand
  • Cryptantha multicaulis A.Nelson
  • Cryptantha polycarpa Greene
  • Eritrichium angustifolium S.Watson
  • Eritrichium muriculatum Torr.
  • Eritrichium muriculatum var. ambiguum A.Gray
  • Krynitzkia ambigua A.Gray

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. 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.