WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

You may not notice this low-climbing vine sprawling over fence posts and bushes. But by summer, the flowers mature into a mass of  showy, fluffy, silky seed heads. Note the small, creamy-white flowers and distinctive seed heads.

FLOWER: April–September. Whitish-yellow, pin-cushion-like flowers have no petals only four 1/2–1-inch long sepals around a dense, round cluster of 1-inch stamens. The fruit matures into a ball of feathery plumes 2–4-inches long that look like miniature beards.

LEAVES: Opposite, deciduous. Blades compound, 1/2–2-inch long, with 5–7 leaflets along the midrib;leaflets cut into 3 highly variable, oval to triangular lobes; surfaces soft-hairy, especially bottom.

HABITAT: Rocky, sandy soils, arroyos,  grasslands, thickets, fence rows; desert grasslands and scrub, foothills.

ELEVATION: 3,100–5,400 feet.

RANGE: AZ, NM, OK, TX.

SIMILAR SPECIES: 7 species of Clematis in NM. The widespread Western Virgin’s Bower, C. ligusticifolia, has showy clusters of white flowers and feathery but not beard-like seed heads and hairless leaflets.

NM COUNTIES: Southern half of NM in low-elevation arid habitats: Carton, Dona Ana, Eddy, Grant, Hidalgo, Lincoln, Luna, Otero.