Plants of Southern California: Gilias of San Diego County Gilias
are delightful little flowers which are often frustrating to
identify. The difficulty in identification comes from at least
four factors: - the common floras contain 60-77 taxa; to
discriminate each of these taxa clearly often requires obscure
or hard to discern characteristics. - the similarity of some
species. In fact, some species are so similar that some
subspecies have been moved from one species to another! Many
vouchers originally determined as one species have been
redetermined as another; see examples here. - the need for a
microscope and careful observation to determine some plant
characteristics needed for the separation. - confusing or
overlapping key couplets used by the floras to separate species,
along with variability in some plant traits. In particular, many
species with corollas that are normally not entirely white have
white versions, which sometimes are then misdetermined as
different species. Gilia species seem especially pr