Common Names

Habitat

Flowers The small flowers of Amsinckia intermedia are yellow to orange in color. They grow at closely spaced intervals along one side of a straightening stem, and into a denser cluster at the top which curves into the shape of a fiddleneck.

DescriptionThe stems and narrow green leaves have a covering of long, bristly, white hairs. Leaves are large around the base of the stem, up to 6 inches in length, but much reduced higher up.
It can grow up to 40 inches (1 m) tall, but usually half that or less.

Comments
They get their name from their flower stems, which bear a large number small flowers, and curl over at the top in a way that somewhat suggests the head of a violin. Source: Wikipedia

This weedy plant can be abundant after unusually wet winters, and dense patches of it can cover the ground. This plant is poisonous. The seeds contain the toxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids intermedine and lycopsamine.
The plants are covered in sharp, brittle hairs that can irritate human skin (especially when the plants are dry), so do not walk through a patch of dried common fiddleneck if you have bare legs.