This keys to Leptosiphon parviflorus in TJM2. But I'm using the name L. longitubus ssp. longitubus here as a small way to prompt attention to the issues discussed below...and ideally promote further robust observation, critique, and work among a larger cadre of botanists in the field and elsewhere.

For more than 20 years, naturalist and CNPS Fellow Randy Morgan has been studying variation within CA populations currently circumscribed under the name L. parviflorus, which also goes by the common name ''Variable Linanthus''.

In attempting to flesh out underlying natural groupings within this variable complex, he has keenly observed aspects of morphology...both in the wild and in experimental cultivation...as well as habitat and distribution patterns. And he has integrated those observations with study of the historical and modern literature (including his interpretation of molecular results of others), and limited herbarium work. On this basis Randy has developed an alternate framework that he believes more faithfully represents the biological entities within the currently construed L. parviflorus complex.

In a draft write-up on this subject, Randy has put forth his view that traditional L. parviflorus ''sensu lato'' actually consists of two species which are themselves highly variable...each in turn having various subspecies. One is the nominate form within the complex, corresponding to the type collected by David Douglas on which George Bentham's original 1833 description of L. parviflorus was based. The other species corresponds to Gilia (Leptosiphon) longituba, described by Bentham in 1850, based on a specimen from Monterey collected by Theodor Hartweg. That species was rechristened with the combination of Linanthus longitubus by A. A. Heller in 1904, and Randy Morgan proposes the new combination Leptosiphon longitubus for this second species...whose corollas indeed have among the longest tubes in the genus.

In Randy's alternate formulation, the plants photographed here correspond to L. longitubus ssp. longitubus due primarily to the following characters: relatively northern/coastal locale; grassland habitat; corolla tube relatively long and uniform in diameter (not tapering above), throat entirely yellow, pair of red spots at base of each lobe (at least in some members of the population...can be poorly developed or lacking in other members), and stamens closely grouped (attached deeper in throat and less spreading and separated than in parviflorus sensu stricto).

At this time Randy's refined circumscription of the ''traditional L. parviflorus complex'' is still in draft form and not entirely ironed out...let alone published. Thus the name Leptosiphon longitubus is not yet formally recognized. Nevertheless, the details of his provisional reorganization will be of interest and significance to those who are fascinated, enamored, or sometimes baffled by the various forms within the Leptosiphon parviflorus group.

Randy enthusiastically encourages and welcomes any constructive feedback...both pro and con...which will help refine and further an accurate and faithful taxonomic representation of the biological populations within L. parviflorus sensu lato.