WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

With densely sticky-hairy stems to 3-feet tall, this deadly poisonous plant uses nicotine as a defense against the voracious larvae of its beneficial pollinator, hawkmoths. Note the creamy, tubular flowers are hairy and in the leaf axils, and the leaves are large, unusual for a desert plant. Used by American Indian shamans, this plant is still common around ceremonial sites with petroglyphs.

FLOWERS: March–November. Flowers creamy to greenish-white, narrow, tubular, 1/2–1-inch long (12–24 mm), spreading open with short, rounded lobes, externally glandular-hairy, blooms throughout the day. Fruit a brown, oval capsule 3/8-inch long (10 mm).

LEAVES: Alternate, upper leaves smaller. Blades elliptic to oval or lance-shaped, tips pointed to rounded, largest leaves reach 9-inches long (22 cm) by 2 3/8-inches wide (6 cm); blades sessile (stemless), clasping, covered with sticky glandular hairs, margins entire to wrinkled.

HABITAT: Dry sandy, gravelly soils, disturbed areas; desert grasslands and scrub, pinyon-juniper woodlands.

ELEVATION: 3,100–6,800 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CA, NV, NM, TX, UT.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Coyote Tobacco, N. attenuata, in the western 1/2 of NM, has flowers with little or no external hair, and leaves on short stems (petioles).

NM COUNTIES: Southern 1/2 of NM, scattered elsewhere, in low- to mid-elevation arid habitats: Bernalillo, Catron, Chaves, Cibola, Dona Ana, Eddy, Guadalupe, Grant, Hidalgo, Lea, Lincoln, Luna, Otero, Quay, San Miguel, Sandoval, Sierra, Socorro.