WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

 
 

With fern-like foliage, white, spherical flower clusters, and round bundles of brown seed pods, this erect, 2–3-foot tall flower can’t be missed at any time of the year. Note the plant is thornless.


FLOWERS: May–September. Flowers in spherical pincushion clusters 1/2-inch diameter (12 mm) on stout stalks (peduncles) from the axils of the upper leaves; each cluster has 30–50 tiny, narrow, tubular, white flowers with showy, yellow anthers. Fruit from summer through fall is a tight, rounded bundle of curved and twisted brown pods, each 1/2–1 inch long (12–25 mm).


LEAVES: Alternate. Blade twice-pinnately compound with 16–30 leaflets, each about 1/8 inch long (2-3 mm). The leaves close-up at night, and often partially during hot, sunny days.


HABITAT: Sandy, gravelly, clay loam soils, grasslands, foothills, roadsides, wetlands; prairies, pinyon-juniper woodlands.


ELEVATION: 3,000–7,000 feet.


RANGE: NM to AL, TX to SD.


SIMILAR SPECIES: 5 species of Desmanthus in NM. Cooley’s Bundleflower, D. cooleyi (see photo), nearly statewide below 7,000 feet, is low, sprawling and with straight, unbundled seed pods.


NM COUNTIES: Scattered nearly statewide in low- to mid-elevation, open habitats: Bernalillo, Chaves, Cibola, Colfax, Curry, Dona Ana, Eddy, Guadalupe, Hidalgo, Lea, Los Alamos, Luna,  McKinley, Mora, Otero, Quay, Rio Arriba, San Miguel, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Sierra, Socorro, Torrance, Union, Valencia.

PRAIRIE  BUNDLEFLOWER

DESMANTHUS  ILLINOENSIS

Fabaceae, Pea Family

Perennial herb

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Range Map for

Desmanthus illinoensis

SIMILAR SPECIES

Cooley’s Bundleflower, Desmanthus cooleyi, nearly statewide in below 7,000 feet, has slender, straight seed pods.

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