Amsinckia tessellata

Wiggins 1964, Kearney and Peebles 1969

Duration: Annual Nativity: Native Lifeform: Forb/Herb General: Stout, often profusely branched annual 30-80 cm tall with coarsely hispid stems and herbage, hairs conspicuously pustulate at base. Leaves: Linear, lanceolate, oblong or narrowly ovate, lower ones gradually narrowed to a short petiole, upper sessile, 2-10 cm long, conspicuously spreading-hispid. Flowers: Spikes 1-5 cm long in flower, elongating to 20 cm or more in fruit, flowering tips dense, later rather lax, calyx lobes 3-5, often of two narrow ones and one broader, 2-3 dentate at apex, 5-8 mm long in flower to 12 mm long in fruit, sparsely hispid; corona yellow or pale orange, 8-12 mm long, 20-nerved below stamens, limb 2-4 mm, broad. Fruits: Nutlets broadly ovoid, erect or slightly incurved 2.5-3.2 mm long, back flattened or slightly rounded. Ecology: Found on grassy slopes, valley floors, rocky to gravelly soil, slopes, flats, and arroyo beds below 5,000 ft (1524 m); flowers April-June. Distribution: e WA to AZ and CA; also in Argentina and Chile Notes: A. tessellata is told apart from A. intermedia by fewer calyx lobes, which are unequal in width, and the 20-nerved corolla tube base. Ethnobotany: The leaves and seeds were eaten raw or parched for food. Etymology: Amsinckia named for Wilhelm Amsinck (1752-1831), tessellata means tessellate or checkered, patterned like a mosaic, referring to the seed. Synonyms: None Editor: SBuckley, 2010

Rough-hairy annual 1-6 dm; stem spreading-hispid, the upper part also with shorter and softer, somewhat retrorse hairs; lvs linear or generally broader, often lance-oblong or lance-ovate, to 10 נ3 cm; sep 7-14 mm at maturity, commonly only (2-)4 by lateral fusion, the broader one(s) often apically bidentate; cor 7-12 mm, the tube 20-nerved below the insertion of the stamens; stamens inserted near the middle of the cor-tube; nutlets 2.5-3.5 mm, roughened, often tessellate- tuberculate; 2n=24. Widespread in w. U.S., occasional with us as a weed in disturbed sites. Apr.-June.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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