WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

Clumps of erect stems 10–24-inches tall with spreading to flat-lying hairs are tipped with curving clusters of showy, yellow flowers. Note the tube-shaped flowers are less than 1/2-inch long, hairy on the outside, and petals have smooth edges. Also named Wayside Gromwell.

FLOWERS: June–August. Clusters at stem tip, yellow, trumpet-shaped, 3/8–1/2-inch (9–12 mm) long, hairy on the outside, with 5 small spreading, petal-like lobes, rounded, hairy. To enhance cross-pollination, some flowers have short stamens deep in the tube and a long style, others have long stamens that extend will above a short style.

LEAVES: No basal leaves, stem leaves alternate. Blades linear to lance-shaped, 3/4–2 3/8-inches (2–6 cm) long, to 5/8-inch (2–15 mm) wide, upper surface with flat-lying hairs, lower surface and margins with spreading hairs.

HABITAT: Sandy, gravelly soils, roadsides, open areas; ponderosa-oak, spruce-fir forests.

ELEVATION: 5,900–10,000 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CO, NM, OK, TX, UT, WY.

SIMILAR SPECIES: 8 species of puccoons in NM. Fringed Puccoon, L. incisum, at lower elevations statewide, has large, fringed petal-like lobes. Smooth-throat Stoneseed, L. cobrense, in cent. and so. mountains, has stem leaves with long hairs, and pale-yellow, funnel-shaped flowers with rounded lobes as wide as the tube is long.

NM COUNTIES: Nearly statewide in mid- to high-elevation habitats (not recorded in Chaves, Lea, Guadalupe, Quay).