Croton sonorae

Kearney and Peebles 1969, McDougall 1973

Duration: Perennial Nativity: Native Lifeform: Shrub General: Shrubby perennials, herbage odorus and likely poisonous. Leaves: Alternate, simple, petiolate, thickish, mature leaves with only scattered, stellate hairs beneath, the margins and stipules devoid of glands, leaves highly variable in size and shape from ovate to almost orbicular, may turn reddish with age or have reddish margins. Flowers: Greenish, mostly monoecious, a few dioecious, petals present in the staminate flowers and absent to rudimentary in the pistillate flowers, sepals subglabrous except for a few simple hairs at the tips, calyx 4-5 lobed, stamens several to many, styles 2-3 with 6 branches, ovaries 2-3 locular with solitary ovules in each cell, flowers borne in racemose infloresences with the staminate flowers above and the pistillate flowers below in monoecious spikes. Fruits: Capsules 3-lobed, subglobose. Seeds small to medium, 1-3, carunculate (a small appendage at the tip of the seed near the hillium). Ecology: Found on dry, rocky slopes from 2,000-3,000 ft (610-914 m); flowering August. Distribution: Arizona; Mexico. Notes: Look for this species in Arizona in Pinal and Pima counties. Information about this species is hard to find, this species may be a good candidate for further study. On visual inspection of specimens, the leaves are highly variable in size, and vary from orbicular to ovate with acute to apiculate tips, often with a raised, prominent mid-vein on the underside. Older stems are woody and dark in color, new stems may be whitish. The small, roundish capsules may be persistent and can be borne in pairs at stem tips. Ethnobotany: Specific uses for this species are unknown, but other species in the genus have uses. Synonyms: Croton attenuatus, Croton gonzalezii, Croton pringlei Editor: LCrumbacher2012 Etymology: Croton comes from the Greek word kroton meaning "a tick" because of the way the seeds look in some members of the family, and sonorae is named presumably because of the range meaning "of the Sonoran Desert"