Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Subshrub

General: Herbaceous perennials or small shrubs; densely pilose with wide-spreading or sometimes incurved hairs; stems several, suberect to decumbent, to ca. 18cm long.

Leaves: Lower elliptic to oval or rarely orbicular, mucronate at the obtuse to rounded apex, rounded to cuneate at the base, 5-13 mm long, 3-12 mm wide, coriaceous; middle-upper leaves oblong-lanceolate, acute at each end.

Flowers: Racemes 2-8 flowered, geniculate 1-3.5 cm long; upper sepal ovate, acute, ciliate and pubescent or puberlous, persistent, 2.8-3.2 mm long; lower sepals 2mm long; wings pink, oblong-obovate, 4.5-6 mm long, 2.3 mm wide, barely retuse at the rounded apex, cuneate at the base, pilose; keel white and pink with a yellow to white beak, 4.2-4.8 mm long.

Fruits: Capsule oblong, with parallel lines, pilose, 4.8 mm long, 2.4 mm wide, flattened.

Ecology: Brushy limestone cliffs, rocky slopes and rock outcrops in Chihuahuan scrub and desert grasslands; 2250- 5000 ft (700-1500 m).

Distribution: se AZ, s NM into wTX and n MX.

Notes: Distinguished by its small, perennial life form with decumbent, flexible stems, pubescent stems and foliage, small, zygomorphic flowers with pink wings and a yellow beak and its oval, flat fruits.

Ethnobotany: unknown

Synonyms: Polygala tweedyi

Editor: FSCoburn, 2014

Etymology: Polygala comes from the Greek polys, "many or much," and gala, "milk," since it was thought that the presence of some of the species in a pasture increased the yield of milk, lindheimeri named for Ferdinand J. Linheimer(1801-81879), German botanist who lived in Texas.