Antirrhinum nuttallianum Benth.                                                                          ssp. subsessile (A. Gray) D. Thompson Scrophulariaceae (Figwort Family) Native Wild Snapdragon Nuttall's Snapdragon

                                     June Photo

Plant Characteristics:  Annual or biennial, stems erect but weak, often clinging to other pls. or debris, hairs sparse to moderately dense, coarse, of +/- uniform length, tips much enlarged; lvs. opposite at lowest 2-5 nodes of main stem; fls. at all 1-lvd. nodes, solitary; upper pedicels generally less than 6 mm.; calyx lobes +/- equal; corolla of opening fls. 7-12 mm., whitish blotch on lower corolla lip generally interrupted by lavender, unique to California are the gold hairs in the mouth; seed ridges broken, fragments longitudinal or unpatterned.

Habitat:  Common in dry, especially disturbed places, below 2500 ft.; Coastal Sage Scrub, Chaparral; L. Calif. to Santa Barbara Co., San Clemente, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz Ids.  (Munz, Flora So. Calif. 793).  0-1400 m. Bloom period not listed in Munz. 

Name:  Greek, anti, like and rhinon, nose because of snoutlike fls.  (Munz, Flora So. Calif. 791).  The species is named in honor of Thomas Nuttall, 1786-1859, English-American ornithologist and botanist, once curator of the Harvard botanical gardens.  Nuttall was the naturalist "Old Curious" of Dana's homeward voyage, commemorated in Two Years Before the Mast.  (Jaeger 313).  Latin, sub, prefix meaning almost.  (Jaeger 251).  Sessile, without a pedicel, peduncle or petiole.  (Hickman 24).  Subsessile, with a short pedicel, referring to the characteristic that gives the ssp. its name.  (my comment).

General:  Uncommon in the study area.  Found only on the Castaway's bluffs and the bluffs just easterly of the Delhi ditch.  Seems to grow only in the wetter years.  Found in Big Canyon in 1995.  (my comments).      Delfina Cuero, a Kumeyaay or Southern Diegueno Indian, made the following comments about Antirrhinum nuttallianum in her autobiography:  "We made tea for colds by gathering purple flowers.  Boiled it and added a little oil, now olive oil, and drink."  (Shipek 85).        Perhaps 40  spp., mostly in Medit. region and sw. U.S.  (Munz, Flora So. Calif. 791).      Munz does not list subspecies for this plant, however, the Jepson Manual lists ssp. nuttallianum and ssp. subsessile.  I have determined that our Upper Bay ssp. is subsessile.  Roberts in his 1998 A Checklist of the Vascular Plants of Orange County, California, does not list ssp. subsessile (my comments).         Many of the most familiar genera of family Scrophulariaceae, including Antirrhinum, Penstemon and Veronica have been moved to a new family, Veronicaceae, based on genetic studies in which DNA sequences of one to three genes has shown that the traditional classifications may be in error.  (Olmstead, Richard G. “Whatever Happened to the Scrophulariaceae?”  FREMONTIA, A Journal of the California Native Plant Society Vol. 30  No. 2  April 2002 p. 13-22).         No changes will be made in the upper bay study at this time.  (my comment).

Text Ref:  Abrams, Vol. III 791; Munz, Calif. Flora 671; Munz, Flora So. Calif. 793.  Roberts,  A Checklist of the Vascular Plants of Orange County, California 1998  57.

Photo Ref:  June 2 83 # 2,4; April 6 84 # 24; May-June 93 # 25; May 98 # 13,14.

Identity: by R. De Ruff, confirmed by John Johnson.

First Found:  June 1983.

Computer Ref:  Plant Data 275.

Plant specimen donated to UC Riverside in 2004. 

Last edit 8/8/05. 

                                               May Photo