About Dicranostegia orcuttiana (A.Gray) Pennell
Dicranostegia orcuttiana is an annual hemiparasitic herb. It reaches 10 to 50 centimetres (3.9 to 19.7 inches) in height, is green with dark-red markings, and is often covered in stiff hairs. Its roots are mostly yellowish, and produce haustoria on their finer branches. The leaves are alternately arranged, sessile, and pinnately divided; each leaf is 3 to 6 centimetres (1.2 to 2.4 inches) long, with 8 to 11 lobes. Its inflorescence is an elongated, very dense spike of flowers, surrounded by leaf-like outer bracts, and measures 2 to 10 centimetres (0.79 to 3.94 inches) tall. The inner bracts are 15 to 25 millimetres (0.59 to 0.98 inches) long, shaped lance-oblong, and have 3 to 7 lobes. Each flower has a corolla up to 25 millimetres (0.98 inches) long, which consists of a club-shaped, yellow-tipped white fibrous pouch. The corolla is enclosed by a sheath-like calyx that is roughly half the corolla's total length. This species occurs in both the United States and Mexico. In Mexico, it is native to Baja California, ranging from Miller's Landing in central Baja California north to Tijuana. In the United States, it is found in southern San Diego County, California, where it grows in the Otay River valley, the Tijuana Hills, and the Tijuana River valley. It previously occurred further north in San Diego County, including at Rice Canyon and Greg Rogers Park in Chula Vista, but these populations have been extirpated to allow residential development. In California, this species holds a state rank of S1 (Critically Imperiled), and a CNPS Rare Plant Inventory rank of 2B.1 (Seriously threatened in California but common elsewhere). Dicranostegia orcuttiana grows most commonly in riparian habitat. In the Tijuana River valley, it grows in a cobbly ecotone between coastal sage scrub above and Baccharis thickets and southern willow scrub (formed by Salix lasiolepis and associated species) near the water. The former Chula Vista population at Greg Rogers Park grew on a substrate of Reiff fine sandy loam. In the Otay River area, the species grows on Holocene alluviums and river-wash.
