WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

Thick and mounding, this tangling, climbing vine reaches 18+ feet long, covered with showy clusters of 30+ small, white flowers in the summer and bundles of silky plumes in the fall.

FLOWER: April-September. Dense clusters of flowers with 4 white, radiating, petal-like sepals, 1/4-3/8 inch (6-10 mm) long, slightly hairy; numerous showy stamens; seed head like a dense feather duster of silky plumes.

LEAVES: Opposite. Blade compound with 5 (or more) oval to lance-shaped leaflets, 1 3/8–3 1/8-inches long (3.5–8 cm), lobed and/or with teeth, surfaces with few scattered hairs.

HABITAT: Sandy, gravelly, dry to moist soils, riparian woodlands,  meadows, slopes, canyons, roadsides; desert scrub, pinyon-juniper, pine-spruce forests.

ELEVATION: 3,900-8,500 feet.

RANGE: Rocky Mt. states and westward.

SIMILAR SPECIES: The white flowers of Old Man’s Beard, C. drummondii, in southern NM, are not showy, leaflets have soft hairs and 3 lobes, and the fruit head is densely feathery.

NM COUNTIES: Statewide in NM except far eastern counties in low- to mid-elevation habitats: Bernalillo, Catron, Cibola, Colfax, De Baca, Dona Ana, Grant, Hidalgo, Luna, Los Alamos, Lincoln, McKinley Mora, Otero, Rio Arriba, San Juan, San Miguel, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Sierra, Socorro, Taos, Torrance, Union, Valencia.