The genus Gilia is highly inclusive and variable and many of its members hybridize.  A Utah Flora, The Intermountain Flora, and Colorado Flora, Western Slope give various names, descriptions, and keys for the Gilia genus.  Many Four Corners Gilias are lumped into Gilia inconspicua by the first two books and into Gilia ophthalmoides in the latter.

     Utah flora expert, Stanley Welsh, says, "the large number of names [given to each Gilia species] is indicative of the variation within ... annual, small-flowered Gilias".

     The genus has been reexamined often and has had a number of its members placed into other Polemoniaceae genera: Giliastrum, Saltugilia, Navarretia, Ipomopsis, Aliciella, Allophyllum, Linanthus, etc.

     Ruiz and Pavon collected the first Gilia, Gilia laciniata, in Peru or Chile and they described it in their 1794, Prodromus Florae Peruvianal et Chilensis (A Preliminary Treatise on the Flora of Peru and Chile). 

     Ruiz and Pavon named Gilia for Filippo Luigi Gilii (1756-1821), Italian clergyman and naturalist.  The species name should be pronounced with a soft g: "Gee lee uh".  See Biographies of Naturalists for more information.

     More Gilia species.

This Gilia will grow another four or five inches, branch, and flower as it grows, until it looks like the plant in the first photograph on this page.  Gilia ophthalmoides' lower stem is often twice the diameter of the upper stem, especially when the plants are young.  Notice the cobwebby hairs that cover the stem on this very young plant.  Hairs are not evident on the older plant above.  It is common for plants to lose their hairs as the plant ages. 

(The reddish vertical seed, which parallels the stem to its right, belongs to Erodium cicutarium.)

This is a species primarily of Northern California with rare occurrences in Oregon, Nevada, and Colorado.  In the Four Corners area it is known only from Montezuma County, Colorado.

The most obvious characteristic that separates Navarettia sinistra from Gilia ophthalmoides is Gilia sinistra's lack of a basal rosette of leaves.  Further, Navarettia sinistra is branched from the base; Gilia ophthalmoides branches above the base.  And finally, notice, as shown in the photographs below, the more numerous, tack-like, glandular hairs on the stem of Navarettia sinistra.

This species was first named Gilia sinistra by M. E. Jones and was renamed Navarretia sinistra subspecies sinistra by L. A. Johnson.  "Sinistra" is Latin for "on the left hand", but the reference is unknown.  Alva Day and her husband, Verne Grant, were the 20th century authorities on the Phlox Family (Polemoniaceae) and Alva Day wrote a widely accepted key to Gilia.  The "Navarretia" genus was named by Ruiz and Pavon (who also named the Gilia genus).  Francisco Navarrete was a Spanish botanist and physician of the 18th century.

Notice the minute, tack-like, glandular hairs on the stem.

Range map © John Kartesz,
Floristic Synthesis of North America

State Color Key

Species present in state and native
Species present in state and exotic
Species not present in state

County Color Key

Species present and not rare
Species present and rare
Species extirpated (historic)
Species extinct
Species noxious
Species exotic and present
Native species, but adventive in state
Eradicated
Questionable presence

Range map for Gilia ophthalmoides

Range map for Navarretia sinistra

Note: The plant shown on this page extends this range map into
the southwest corner of Colorado into Montezuma County.