Native Plant Fun Facts: Phenomenal Phacelia!

Tiny Phacelia californica flowers host a bumblebee visitor.

This week’s featured native plant is the gorgeous Phacelia californica, commonly known as Rock Phacelia and the less appealing name of California scorpionweed. The photos and video featured here are from GFE’s mother plant, which sprung up along the garden’s middle staircase about three years ago. We left it in place to see what would develop, and what a fantastic surprise we got! It has since developed into a dense, robust patch. This plant self-seeds very readily, and we’ve nurtured and transplanted its offspring onto our native plant hillside to add beauty and prevent erosion. 

The tight coils of Phacelia flowers earned it the nickname of California scorpionweed, because they curve like a scorpion’s tail. The only “sting” you might get from Phacelia is mild itching from the plant’s prickly, fine hairs.

Rock phacelia is native to coastal northern California and Oregon, and is a food source for the Mission blue butterfly, an endangered species endemic to San Francisco. We’re so thrilled to have this gem of a plant in our garden, supporting our precious insects and adding visual variety with its distinctive leaves and flowers. It has also provided benefits to humans too -- the Pomo California native people used fresh, crushed leaf juice to treat skin diseases, and the Ohlone boiled its roots for a tea to treat fevers and colds.

In the video from March 20th, you’ll see the bumblebee foraging on the Phacelia’s coils of tiny flowers with groundcover Ceanothus (last week’s featured plant) in the background. It’s a veritable bug buffet! We love Phacelia californica and we hope you will too.