WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

Often forming a 4-inch tall, rounded mound completely covered with delicate pink flowers, this plant dots dry, sandy foothills like scattered jewels. Note the long floral tube with 4 petal-like lobes, and the erect, pine-needle-like leaves.

FLOWERS: May–August. Trumpet-shaped with floral tube 3/8–1 1/4-inches (1–3 cm) long, flairs into 4 slender, pointed lobes each 3/16–3/8-inch (5–9 mm) long. Color varies from reddish to pink or white. Fruit is a nodding, bb-sized capsule.

LEAVES: Opposite but crowded on stem, erect or ascending (not spreading); resembles a short pine needle. Blade linear with edges tightly rolled under, 3/8–1 1/4-inches (1–3 cm) long, to 1/8–inch (3 mm) wide.

HABITAT: Dry rocky, sandy soils; desert grasslands and scrub, foothills, pinyon-juniper-oak woodlands.

ELEVATION: 4,200–6,800 feet.

RANGE: AZ, NM, TX, UT.

SIMILAR SPECIES: 7 species of Houstonia in NM. Needleleaf Bluet, H. acerosa, in similar habitats and range, has floral tubes 1/4–1/2-inch (8–12 mm) long, and spiny leaves in bundles crowded along 2–12-inch tall, woody stems. Pigmy Bluet, H. wrightii, in western 1/2 NM, has stems 1–7 inches tall, spreading leaves, and flowers in flat-topped clusters.

NM COUNTIES: Western 2/3 NM in low- to mid-elevation, arid habitats: Bernalillo, Catron, Cibola, De Baca, Dona Ana, Grant, Guadalupe, Hidalgo, Lincoln, McKinley, Otero, Rio Arriba, San Miguel, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Sierra, Socorro, Torrance, Valencia.