Plants annual, scapose, erect, 5-15 cm, glabrous. Leaves basal; blade glabrous, ultimate lobes acute. Inflorescences 1-flowered; buds erect. Flowers: receptacle obconic, cup without spreading free rim; calyx acute, glabrous; petals yellow, 7-12 mm. Capsules 4-7 cm. Seeds brown, spheric to ellipsoid, 1.4-2 mm, burlike with raised ridges. 2 n = 12.

Flowering late winter-spring (Mar-May). Open fields, grasslands; 0-600 m; Calif.

Eschscholzia lobbii grows in the Great Central Valley and in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.