WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

If it weren’t for the small but flamboyant purplish-red flowers, this sprawling plant with 4–40-inch long trailing stems could easily be overlooked. Note the and silky-hairy stem, leaves, and buds, and the showy flowers.

FLOWERS: April–October. Bloom non-symmetrical, 1-inch wide with 5 spreading petal-like sepals, each lance-shaped, 5/16–3/8-inch (8–10 mm) long and densely hairy on the backside; 5 smaller petals, upper 3 are reddish and fused to a long stem (limb) with a green claw (use lens to best see this strange structure), the lower 2 petals without stems (sessile). Fruit is rounded, woolly-hairy, 1/4-inch diameter.

LEAVES: Alternate. Blade linear to elliptic, 3/8–3/4-inch long (8–20 mm), covered with silky-hairs, minutely spine tipped.

HABITAT: Open rocky, sandy soils, foothills, bushlands, roadsides; desert grasslands and creosote, mesquite scrub, oak-juniper woodlands.

ELEVATION: 3,000–7,500 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CO, FL, GA, KS, NM, OK, TX.

SIMILAR SPECIES: 3 species of Krameria in NM but this is the most widespread and only prostrate, trailing species; K. erecta and K. bicolor are woody shrubs in extreme southern NM.

NM COUNTIES: Eastern and southern NM in low- to mid-elevation, arid habitats: Chaves, Curry, De Baca, Dona Ana, Eddy, Grant, Guadalupe, Harding, Hidalgo, Lea, Lincoln, Luna, Mora, Otero, Quay, Roosevelt, San Miguel, Sierra, Socorro, Torrance, Union, Valencia.