WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

Crush a leaf of this branching, prostrate, 1/2–8-inch tall flower and you’ll smell a strong lemon scent from oil glands that dot the leaves. Note the flower heads have 8 yellow rays and form a dense cluster, and the plant grows low to the ground. The plant makes a popular lemon-flavored tea. Southwest Indians ate the plant raw and used it as a spice, perfume, dye, and for medicinal and ceremonial purposes.

FLOWERS: June–December. Dense flat-topped to rounded clusters; buds open from the center outward; flower heads on stems (peduncles) 3/8–3/4-inch long (10–20 mm). Each composite flower has 8 pointed, petal-like yellow ray flowers around a yellow disk with protruding florets. The phyllaries at the base of the flower head have large translucent glandular dots.

LEAVES: Opposite, crowded at stem tips; blades narrow, linear, 3/8–1 3/4-inches long (8–45 mm), slightly fleshy with a crease down the middle.

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

ELEVATION: 3,600–7,600 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CO, KS, NM, TX.

SIMILAR SPECIES: 5 other species of Pectis in NM. The look-alike Common Chinchweed, P. papposa, scattered in NM, is scented with 8 (7–9) rays, but has loose clusters of flowers and often forms rounded bushes 1-foot tall and wide. The mat-forming Spreading Chinchweed, P. prostrata, in the sw fourth of NM, has unscented leaves and flower heads with 5 rays. Five-bract Chinchweed, P. filipes, also in the sw fourth of NM, is scented with flower heads with 5 rays borne singly on stems reaching 2 1/2-inches long. Three-rayed Chinchweed, P. cylindrical, in the southern border counties, has 3 ray flowers and no scent.

NM COUNTIES: Nearly statewide in low- to mid-elevation, arid habitats: Bernalillo, Catron, Chaves, Cibola, Colfax, De Baca, Dona Ana, Eddy, Grant, Guadalupe, Hidalgo, Lea, Lincoln, Los Alamos, Luna, McKinley, Otero, Quay, Rio Arriba, Roosevelt, San Juan, San Miguel, Santa Fe, Sandoval, Sierra, Socorro, Torrance, Union, Valencia.