Pectis filipes

Variety filipes is known only from Mexico.

Wiggins 1964, Kearney and Peebles 1969

Duration: Annual Nativity: Native Lifeform: Forb/Herb General: Diffuse annual with slender to subfiliform, moderately branched and ascending stems 10-30 cm long, minutely puberulent, glabrate or glabrous, strongly scented. Leaves: Linear, 0.5-3 mm wide, 1-6 cm long, glabrous to faintly scabrous, often subrevolute with marginal glands and 1-5 pairs of basal bristles. Flowers: Heads in loose leafy cymes, peduncles very slender, 1-8 cm long; involucres narrowly turbinate, 2-4 mm wide, 4-6 mm high, involucral bracts narrowly oblanceolate, obtuse, lightly keeled and faintly gibbous-callous below, often glandless with thin margins that are scarious but not ciliolate; ray flowers usually 5, ligules 1-1.5 mm wide, 5-6 mm long, pale yellow but drying reddish; disc flowers 5-6, about 3 mm long, throat slightly broader than tube, glabrous or essentially so. Fruits: Cypselae linear, 4-5 mm long, black, minutely stiff hairs, with pappus of 1-4 slender awns, 2.8-4 mm long, minutely barbellate with ascending hairs. Ecology: Found in rocky to sandy soils; 3,000-6,000 ft (914-1829 m); flowers July-October. Distribution: AZ, sw NM, sw TX: south to c MEX. Notes: Distinguished as a small, delicate annual, spicy-lemon scented with opposite, linear leaves, sometimes with hair-like projections, often at the base; 5 yellow ray flowers and long peduncles (leafless stem below heads). This diiffuse annual is hard to see if you-re not paying attention. There is one variety in the region: var. subnuda. Originally these were a single species, but have since been separated and are difficult to separate out. Notably, the Pectis have C4 photosynthetic pathways which accounts for why they inhabit such hot, dry sites. Ethnobotany: Unknown Etymology: Pectis is from the Greek pecteo, to comb, while filipes means threadlike stalks. Synonyms: None Editor: SBuckley 2010, FSCoburn 2014