San Francisco Lessingia
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Sacramento Fish & Wildlife Office

Species Account

SAN FRANCISCO LESSINGIA
(Lessingia germanorum)

CLASSIFICATION: Federal Endangered Species (Federal Register  62:33368  pdf; June 19, 1997)

CRITICAL HABITAT: None designated.

RECOVERY PLAN:  Recovery Plan for Coastal Plants of the Northern San Francisco Peninsula 2003

DESCRIPTION:

San Francisco lessingia (Lessingia germanorum) is a low-growing, slender-stemmed annual herb of the aster family (Asteraceae). Robust plants have diffusely branched stems and grow up to one foot high, spreading close to the ground. Small plants may be very short and nearly erect, with few or no branches. Leaves are narrowly lance-shaped, lobed and toothed or entire, mostly an inch or less long. The leaves and stems are covered with grayish, wooly, loosely interwoven hairs.

Flower heads are lemon-yellow and are mostly solitary at the ends of stems. The heads consist of tubular lemon yellow disc florets with a brownish or purplish band on the lobes of the corolla. There are no ray florets. The seed-like dry fruits are crowned with hairlike bristles which enable them to be dispersed readily by wind. Flowering occurs in late summer and fall; seed dispersal occurs very late in summer and in fall-winter. See Hickman (1993) in General Information about California Plants, below, for a detailed description of the species.

DISTRIBUTION:

San Francisco lessingia occurred historically in stabilized older coastal sand dunes and sandy soils with moderately open scrub or herbaceous vegetation on the San Francisco peninsula. The species grows most abundantly in vegetation gaps, blowouts, erosional slopes or disturbed sandy soil with sparse vegetation. See the Recovery Plan (above) for a detailed discussion of this species' distribution.

SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS:

San Francisco Lessingia has historically been endangered by competition with invasive non-native vegetation and native scrub vegetation, residential and commercial development, sand quarrying, trampling and recreational activities, inadequate regulatory mechanisms, bulldozing, incidental use of fertilizers, and other urban land use activities.

This species was listed as endangered by the California Department of Fish and Game in January 1990. The California Native Plant Society has placed it on List 1B (rare or endangered throughout its range).

REFERENCES FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 2003. Recovery Plan for Coastal Plants of the Northern San Francisco Peninsula. Portland, Oregon.

General Information about California Plants

Photo credit: San Francisco Lessingia, Presidio Park Stewards: National Park Service © CA Academy of Sciences Calphoto ID: 9092 3191 3541 0091

Prepared by Endangered Species Div., Sacramento Fish & Wildlife Office, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

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