Spreading Moonpod

Plants herbaceous, ± woody at base, overall moderately to densely pubescent with brownish, translucent, conic hairs, often with terminal cell whitish and flattened or brownish and spheroidal, and with appressed, white, flattened, minute, basally attached hairs. Stems erect, decumbent, or prostrate, densely leafy, 10-30 cm. Leaves dull green, commonly drying brownish green, petiolate, those of a pair slightly unequal, gradually reduced toward inflorescence, somewhat succulent; petiole 3-20 mm; blade ovate to ovate-oblong, 10-30 × 4-17 mm, base obtuse to truncate, margins undulate, apex acute to obtuse. Flowers usually 1 in axils of leaves; pedicel 1 mm; perianth 35-48 mm, tube pale dull green, limbs greenish white or pale greenish yellow, often with 5 greenish stripes, 15 mm diam.; stamens (4-)5. Fruits 5-7 mm with flattened, white hairs on body; wings 1-2 mm wide.

N.Mex., Okla., Tex.

Flowering late spring-late summer.

Dry clay and sandy, commonly calcareous or gypseous, soils; 1100-1600m.

Selinocarpus diffusus A. Gray, Amer. J. Sci. Arts, ser. 2, 15: 262. 1853

Selinocarpus diffusus A. Gray, Am. Jour. Sci. II. 15: 262. 1853
Selinocarpus diffusus nevadensis Standley, Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 12: 388. 1909.
Plants erect or decumbent, from a stout woody root, 1-3 dm. high, much branched from the base and also above, the branches rather slender, covered with short appressed inflated white hairs and very sparsely glandular-puberulent or hirtellous, very leafy; petioles slender or stout, 0.3-2.5 cm. long, often exceeding the blades; leaf-blades oval, oval-ovate, ovateoblong, or rarely rhombic-orbicular, 1.2-2.5 cm. long, 0.6-1.5 cm. wide, rounded to obtuse at the base, slightly unequal and short-decurrent, broadly rounded to acute at the apex, thick and fleshy, flat or crispate, when young densely covered with short appressed inflated white
hairs, glandular-puberulent and scabrous, sometimes glabrate in age; flowers often all cleistogamous, short-pedicellate, the bracts linear-subulate, 3-6 mm. long; perianth 3.5-4.5 cm. long, densely glandular-hirtellous outside, the tube very slender, the limb 1.5 cm. broad, pale greenish-yellow; stamens 5, slightly exserted; fruit 6-7 mm. long, the 5 wings 2-3 mm. long, glabrate, the body subtruncate at both ends, puberulent; seed narrowly elliptic, 4.5 mm. long, lightbrown .
Type locality: Rocky hills and valleys from the Pecos to the Limpio, Texas. Distribution: In dry soil, western Texas to southern Utah and Nevada.