WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

These small, delicate, sprawling plants, dotted throughout with red-orange glands in tiny pits (not stalked glands), have small yellow pea-like flowers. Multiple slender stems reach 15 3/4-inches tall and are covered with tiny, flat-lying hairs. Note the stamens are contained within the petals, and the small compound leaflets have orange gland dots on the undersides.

FLOWER: May–September. Asymmetrical, 3/8-inch long flowers with 5, orange-yellow petals, usually with red basal markings, bloom on a spike from the bottom up. Stamens hang downward against the cupped lower petal but are shorter that the petal. Red-orange glands dot the stem and sepals enclosing the buds and the crescent-shaped, 1-inch long, 3/8-inch wide pod, which has 2 seeds.

LEAVES: Alternate. The twice-compound leaves are divided into 5–7 segments or ribs (pinnae), each with 5–10 pairs of 1/8–1/4-inch long leaflets with rows of red gland dots on the undersides.

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

ELEVATION: 3,300–7,000 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CA, CO, KS, MO, NE, NM, OK, TX.

SIMILAR SPECIES: The look-alike Indian Rush-Pea or Hog Potato, Hoffmannseggia glauca, in much the same habitat and range, has stems covered with stalked, red-tipped glands, stamens longer than the petals, and leaflets without orange glands on the undersides.

NM COUNTIES: nearly statewide (not reported in Cibola, Mora, Taos, Union cos.) at low-to mid-elevation, dry habitats.