WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

Usually with 1 erect, stiff stem to 3-feet tall, with numerous branches in the upper half, this plant has coarse, Velcro-like leaves but delicate, showy, white flowers. Also called Sand Lily because it prefers sandy soils. Note the numerous white petals and long, showy stamens.

FLOWER: July–September. The 1 1/2–3 1/2-inch (38–90 mm) wide flowers have 5 white, non-overlapping petals and 5(+) equal petal-like modified stamens (staminodia). The narrow, lance-shaped petals, each 1–1 1/2-inches (25-38 mm) long, open in the late afternoon for night pollination and fade to yellow. Flowers bloom atop a hairy, cylindrical calyx tube with 5 lance-shaped, pointed lobes beneath the petals. The 2–6 small, leaf-like bracts beneath the tube are lance-shaped with teeth or narrow lobes. The tube develops into a cylindrical capsule 3/4–1 1/8-inches (18-30 mm) long with the dried calyx lobes extending like fingers.

LEAVES: Alternate. Blades lance-shaped, 1 1/2–4-inches long (3.8–10 cm), with deeply toothed margins, pointed tips, and are covered with short, barbed, hairs, providing the common name Stickleaf. Upper leaves clasp the stem, lower leaves have short stems (petioles).

HABITAT: Sandy soils, roadsides, fields, disturbed areas; shortgrass prairies, shinnery oak, desert scrub, pinyon-juniper.

ELEVATION: 3,300–7,000 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CO, IL, KS, MO, MT, NE, NM, OK, SD, TX, WY.

SIMILAR SPECIES: NM has 17 species of stickleaf, most yellow and with limited distribution. Ten-petal Blazingstar, M. decapetala, in the ne quarter of NM, has 3–5-inch (8–15 cm) wide, white flowers with 10 overlapping, white to yellowish petals, numerous stamens shorter than petals, and rarely grows in sandy soils.

NM COUNTIES: Scattered across NM in low- to mid-elevation, dry habitats: Bernalillo, Colfax, De Baca, Grant, Harding, Hidalgo, Lea, Luna, McKinley, Mora, Otero, Quay, Roosevelt, Sandoval, San Juan, San Miguel, Torrance, Union.