''Eriastrum hooveri'' is a rare species of flowering plant in the phlox family known by the common name Hoover's woollystar. It is endemic to the

South Coast Ranges The Coast Ranges of California span from Del Norte or Humboldt County, California, south to Santa Barbara County. The other three coastal California mountain ranges are the Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges and the Klamath Mountains. Phy ...

of California from San Benito to Los Angeles Counties, where it grows in grassy open habitat. It is an annual herb producing a wiry, usually woolly stem up to about 15 centimeters tall. The leaves are linear and threadlike, less than three centimeters long, and sometimes divided into two thready lobes. The inflorescence is a woolly cluster of narrow, leaflike

bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of ...

s laced with webby fibers. The flowers are white and just a few millimeters in length. This plant was considered to be in serious jeopardy in the 1980s when many of its populations, most of which occurred on private and unprotected land, were in immediate danger of being destroyed by one or more threats, including conversion of the land for agricultural use, petroleum drilling, development for housing, grazing, agricultural pollution, invasive plants, flooding, and fire suppression.EPA: Federal Register. (2003)
Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Removing ''Eriastrum hooveri'' (Hoover's woolly-star) from the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Species
/ref>
/ref> The plant was federally listed as a threatened species in 1990. After the listing, further studies revealed many more populations, including several in counties where it was not previously known. The species may have been sparse during the 1980s surveys due to drought conditions. The plant was also found to be more adaptable and resilient to destruction than previously thought. Several companies that own land where the plant occurs, such as that in the

Lost Hills Oil Field The Lost Hills Oil Field is a large oil field in the Lost Hills Range, north of the town of Lost Hills in western Kern County, California, in the United States. Production While only the 18th-largest oil field in California in size, in total rema ...

, have put protection measures in place. Based on these events, which demonstrated the plant was not as threatened as was feared, it was delisted in 2003. It is still designated a sensitive species by the

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's la ...

References

External links

Jepson Manual TreatmentPhoto gallery
hooveri Flora of California Flora without expected TNC conservation status {{Polemoniaceae-stub