Leaves ovate (egg-shaped, wider toward base), obtuse-tipped (blunt), margins entire, ~0.5-2 cm long, and pretty crowded below, each leaf on a distinct petiole opposite its neighbor. Higher up, the leaves switch to alternate arrangement, becoming sessile (attached directly to stem without a clear petiole), slimmer and longer. Bright to medium green. The plant is glabrous (smooth) throughout, though the base may be a little woolly. This annual herbaceous vine is about 0.3-1 m high, the upper parts climbing or propping up the weak stems by flower pedicels, which are long and curling like tendrils. The flowers are individual, not in clusters, each flower dangling from a long curving slender pedicel ~3-9 cm long. The flower is an intense blue, purple, or lavender with darker veins. The flower corolla is tubular, ~1-1.5 cm long, divided into 2 lips, which are themselves divided into lobes (2 on the upper lip, 3 on the lower). The lower lip has a bulbous sac-like spur, and the upper creates a kind of palate across the throat, obstructing the view down its throat. The calyx below the corolla is split into 5 lance- linear lobes with acute tips. Blooms March through May. The fruit is a symmetrical round capsule ~1 cm in diameter, which is divided into 2 equal chambers that detach from 2 slits at the top. Seeds are small and bumpy. Plant is found on coastal hillsides and mountains in California from Northern California into Baja. It favors dry, recently burned slopes in chaparral below 1300 m: It's a bit of a fire-follower.
Antirrhinum kelloggii aka A. hookerianum aka Neogaerrhinum strictum (Plantaginaceae, recently taken out of Scrophulariaceae): climbing snapdragon, Kellogg's snapdragon, Lax snapdragon
The development of this key was partially funded through the Geoscience Diversity Enhancement Program (Award #0703798) and through a course of re-assigned time provided by the CSULB Scholarly and Creative Activities Committee. Thanks also to the students in sections of biogeography, introductory physical geography, GDEP, and LSAMP for "test-driving" various editions of this key.