Apodanthera undulata

Wiggins 1964, Kearney and Peebles 1969

Duration: Perennial Nativity: Native Lifeform: Vine General: Coarse perennial vine with gray to green foliage, stems thick, multistriate, hispid and sparsely muriculate, tendrils short-petiolate, mostly bifid, short, sparsely pilose. Leaves: Blades 6-9 cm long, 7-10 cm wide, reinform, entirely, evenly and remotely denticulate, to markedly undulate-margined and sparsely hispid and often muriculate above, whitish and densely hispid below, finely muriculate between veins and coarsely muricate on veins below, on petioles 4-7 cm long. Flowers: Racemose flowers with filiform bracts 5-20 mm long, staminate calyx tube slender, 2-2.5 cm long, subulate lobes, less than half as long as tube; corolla lobed to calyx rim, lobes about equaling calyx tube, pubescent. Fruits: Ovoid pepo, longitudinally ribbed, 4-5 cm wide, pubescent, on peduncles 4-7 cm long. Ecology: Found in dry soils, sometimes on limestone soils; 1,500-5,500 ft (457-1676 m); flowers June-September. Distribution: s and c AZ, s NM, sw TX; south to s MEX. Notes: A crawling vine distinguished by gray-green-yellowish green leaves with rough, stiff hairs that feel like sandpaper to the touch, wavy leaf margins; large yellow flowers. Ethnobotany: Unknown Etymology: Apodanthera comes from the Greek a, meaning without, podos, meaning foot, and anthera or anther, while undulata means wavy. Synonyms: None Editor: SBuckley 2010, FSCoburn 2015