Acleisanthes longiflora A. Gray

Plants herbaceous, often slightly woody at base, overall pubescence of white, capitate hairs 0.2-0.4 mm. Stems ascending to prostrate or sprawling, profusely branched, to 100 cm, puberulent to glabrate, occasionally hirtellous. Leaves grayish green, petiolate, those of pair slightly unequal; petiole 1-14 mm, puberulent to glabrate; blade lanceolate to linear-lanceolate or triangular-lanceolate to deltate, 3-40 × 1-30 mm, base cuneate and decurrent, margins undulate or crispate, apex acuminate to acute or long attenuate, glaucous, puberulent to glabrate. Inflorescences solitary flowers, rarely geminate, sessile or with pedicel to 7 mm; bracts linear-subulate, 1-7 mm, puberulent to sparsely so. Flowers: chasmogamous perianth with tubes 7-17 cm × 1-2 mm, puberulent to glabrate, limbs 10-20 mm diam., stamens 5; cleistogamous perianth 5-12 mm, puberulent, stamens 5. Fruits with 5 hyaline ridges and pair of shallow, parallel grooves between ridges, without resinous glands, narrowly oblong, truncated at both ends, constricted 1 mm both below apex and above base, 6-10 mm, hirtellous to puberulent with capitate hairs and many to few, minute, moniliform hairs 0.2-0.4 mm, or glabrate.

Ariz., Calif., N.Mex., Tex.; Mexico (Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Nuevo León, Sonora, Tamaulipas).

Flowering Feb-Nov.

Rocky, gravelly, loamy, or sandy calcareous, gypseous, or igneous-derived soils in deserts, grasslands, shrublands, or woodlands; 0-2500m.

Acleisanthes longiflora A. Gray, Am. Jour. Sci. II. 15: 261
1853.
Plants decumbent or ascending, from a slender or thick woody root, much branched, the branches slender, 2—5 dm. long, cinereo-puberulent or. rarely short-hirtellous, glabrate below; leaves of a pair subequal, the petioles stout or slender, 3-8 mm. long, the blades broadly deltoid-ovate or rhombic-ovate to deltoid, lanceolate, or linear-lanceolate, 1.5-4.5 cm. long, 0.3-3.5 cm. wide, truncate to acute at the base and decurrent, acuminate or rarely acute to long-attenuate at the apex, thick and succulent, glaucous, often crispate, the margins then undulate or when dry apparently coarsely dentate, sparsely cinereo-puberulent when young or rarely short-puberulent, soon glabrate; flowers axillary, solitary, sessile or subsessile, the bracts linear-subulate, half as long as the fruit or shorter, the perianth 9—17 cm. long, white tinged with purple, sparsely and minutely puberulent outside, the tube very slender, 1.5-2 mm. in diameter, the limb 1.5-2 cm. broad; stamens short-exserted ; fruit narrowly oblong, 5-6 mm. long, truncate at both ends, 5-angulate, puberulent or rarely short-hirtellous, often
glabrate.
Type locality: Valley of the Limpio, western Texas.
Distribution: In dry, often alkaline soil, southern and western Texas to Riverside County, California, southward to Chihuahua and Coahuila.