Thamnosma texanum

Wiggins 1964, Kearney and Peebles 1969

Duration: Perennial Nativity: Native Lifeform: Subshrub General: Low perennial forb to subshrub with many slender, erect, or ascending branches 10-50 cm tall and usually about 1 mm or less in diameter, light green, pellucid-punctate. Leaves: Filiform to linear-oblong, sessile, entire, 5-15 mm long. Flowers: Terminal racemes, interrupted, mainly less than 5 cm, on slender pedicels 2-8 mm long; sepals broadly ovate or rounded-deltoid, 1-2 mm long, sometimes retuse; petals ovate to broadly elliptic, 2-3 mm wide, 3-5 mm long, greenish yellow or white, slightly suffused with purple, pellucid-punctate; stamens slightly shorter than petals; anthers broadly ovate, apiculate. Fruits: Coriaceous capsule, deeply obcordate, 3-7 mm wide and about as high, sessile or on a stipe about 1 mm. Ecology: Found on dry rocky slopes and flats from 2,000-5,000 ft (610-1524 m); flowers March-June. Distribution: AZ, sw NM, TX; south to c MEX. Notes: This can be an inconspicuous shrub, sometimes difficult to pick out except when flowering. It is low-growing and the pungent scent is distinctive. This, combined with the green, glaucous, gland-dotted foliage, linear leaves, urceolate-like but unfused flower which is a beautiful delicate purple color, and the fruit looking like two thick horns or a butterfly should lead you to this species. Ethnobotany: Unknown, but other species in the genus have uses. Etymology: Thamnosma is from the Greek for odorous shrub, while texana means of or from Texas. Synonyms: None Editor: SBuckley 2010, FSCoburn 2015

Plant: Suffrutescent forb to 30 cm herbage grayish green Leaves: leaves linear, gland-dotted, with a medicinal-spicy odorleaves Fruit: a 2-lobed capsule.