''Your plant I'm guessing is N. atractyloides (purple form), but is very young and there aren't enough bracts/leaves to get a good reading from the photo. Another plant that can sometimes be deceptively similar in a photo/herbarium sheet context is N. viscidula, but N. viscidula has notably long stamens, which your plant doesn't have (look at Doreen Smith's viscidula on Calphotos).''

I replied as follows:

'' I wouldn't have guessed N. atractyloides, since the leaves appears to be long & linear without a 'lancelately-widened' rachis or lobes to speak of . But it becomes more plausible if, as you say, one considers these as very young plants...and I've seen that N. atractyloides can get quite large when mature. It seems a bit odd, though, that a very young annual plant would have so many open flowers. Precocious?''

David's response:

''Note that the Jepson Manual describes N. atractyloides leaves as 'strap-shaped to lanceolate...'. I usually pay more attention to the flower head and its bracts (essentially upper leaves) because the lower leaves are more variable depending on how high up the stem they are, and as you can see in your plants, how mature the plant is. You'll notice on your plants that you can see some somewhat triangular bracts (wide base) showing in some of the heads.''

Although David qualified his determination with the observation that the plants are ''very young and there aren't enough bracts/leaves to get a good reading'', after scrutinizing flowers of the purple form of N. atractyloides I think his putative ID is strong enough to post this image as that taxon. (If someone has good reason to believe this is a different taxon, please contact me! In that case, of course, the responsibility for the error lies with me...not David, to whom I'm very grateful for sharing his extensive field (and overall) knowledge of this group :-)