Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Stems prostrate to procumbent, several from base, slender, 5-25 cm long, cinereous-strigose.

Leaves: Filiform to linear or spatulate, .3-2 mm wide, 1-3 cm long, strigose.

Flowers: Small, sepals elliptic-lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, 1.5-2 mm long at anthesis, to 2.5 mm long in fruit, strigose; corolla white, about 2 mm long.

Fruits: Nutlets all alike, oblong, divaricate, straight or very slightly inflexed at tip, .5-.8 mm broad, 1.6-2.5 mm long, cartilaginous margin upturned to incurved along length of body, unarmed on this portion, nearly entire, or undulate, rounded distal end bear

Ecology: Found on sandy or gravelly soil below 3,000 ft (2134 m); flowers February=May.

Notes: Differs from P. heterocarpa by being smaller, with thicker hairs.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Pectocarya is from the Greek pectos, combed and karua, nut, penicillata means having a tuft of hair like a paintbrush.

Synonyms: Cynoglossum penicillatum, Pectocarya linearis var. penicillata

Editor: SBuckley, 2010