WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

With striking red, orange, or yellow flowers, this widespread plant has a single or branching stem 15–40-inches tall, depending on habitat conditions. A dense cluster of long, upright seed pods crowd the stem below the flower head. The Mustard family, formerly named Cruciferae, has distinctive flowers with 4 petals spread flat in the shape of a cross.

FLOWER: April–August. Showy spikes, densely covered with elongated to rounded flower clusters. The 4 spreading, rounded petals, 1/2–1 3/8-inch (13–35 mm) long (including a 1 cm long “claw”), range from lemon-yellow to orange-red, and sometimes lavender or cream. The fruit matures into narrow, linear, seed pods (siliques) 1 3/8–4 3/4-inches long that angle upward nearly vertical.

LEAVES: Basal leaves usually whither by blooming. Alternate stem leaves, linear to spoon-shaped, reach 2 3/8-inches long (6 cm) by 3/4-inch wide (20mm), covered with minute hairs. Margins are entire or with a few small teeth.

HABITAT: Gravelly, sandy soils; roadsides, meadows, desert scrublands, pinyon-juniper-oak, ponderosa, fir-aspen forests.

ELEVATION: 4,200–12,000 feet.

RANGE: Widespread in western U. S.

SIMILAR SPECIES: 2 varieties are recognized in NM: var. purshii (var. elatum) with yellow flowers common at lower elevations but occurs to 10,000-feet; and var. capitatum with orange-red flowers, usually at higher elevations. Another yellow Wallflower, E. asperum, in the ne plains of NM, has gray-hairy, longitudinal-striped seed pods that extend almost at right angles from the stem. The introduced Bushy Wallflower, E. repandum, in the western half of NM, is a leafy annual with yellow flowers and pods that spread at right angles.

NM COUNTIES: Statewide in mid- to high-elevation, dry habitats.