WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

Butterflies and bees love this 2-foot tall plant with numerous erect stems and dense, flat-topped clusters of thread-like, blue flowers. Note the leaves with deeply dissected lobes.

FLOWER: April–November. Each flower head has 35–70 tiny, thread-like, sky-blue, disk florets and no ray flowers.

LEAVES: Opposite. Blades oval to triangular in outline with a tapering base, 5/8–1 5/8-inches long (15–40 mm), deeply palmately dissected into 3 lobes with toothed segments with either pointed or blunt tips.

HABITAT: Sandy, rocky soil, depressions, ditches, streambeds; mesquite-creosote brushlands.

ELEVATION: 4,500–5,600 feet.

RANGE: AZ, NM, TX.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Only one species of Mistflower in NM. The dissected leaves and blue, thread-like flowers distinguish this species, formerly named Conoclinium greggii and Eupatorium greggii.

NM COUNTIES: Uncommon in southern NM: Dona Ana, Grant, Hidalgo, Luna, Socorro.

NOTES: Palmleaf Mistflower leaves and flowers produce an alkaloid toxin, intermedine, that poisons herbivores. Male Queen butterflies convert the compound into a pheromone that attracts females, then when mating pass a “nuptial gift” of the original toxin to the female, which makes the eggs unpalatable to predators.