WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

This sticky, smelly plant doesn’t make it to many bouquets. Glandular hairs cover the 4–24-inch tall stems and oblong, scalloped leaves. Note the small, funnel-shaped, blue flowers along one side of a bloom stem with the tip hooked like a scorpion’s tail. After spring rains, thousands of plants can cover wind-blown sandy areas. The genus Phacelia has at different times been placed in the Hyrophyllaceae and Boraginaceae families.

FLOWERS: February–May. Funnel-shaped flowers have 5 rounded, blue to lavender, rarely white, petals, each 1/4-inch long and wide (6 mm). The purple stamens and style extend far beyond the petals. Several flowers bloom at a time in the cluster on the hook-tipped stem.

LEAVES: Basal; alternate on stem. Blades oblong to lance-shaped, 3/4–2 3/4-inches long (2–7 cm), margins wavy-scalloped with rounded teeth; glandular hairs cover both surfaces.

HABITAT: Loose sand and dunes, gravelly soils, roadsides, disturbed areas; desert grasslands and scrub; pinyon-juniper woodlands.

ELEVATION: 3,500–7,100 feet.

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

SIMILAR SPECIES: 24 species of scorpionweed in NM. The sticky,  glandular hairs, scalloped leaves margins, and lavender flowers with protruding stamens help distinguish this species.

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