Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Slender spreading annual herb, 3-15 cm tall; stems disarticulating at the nodes at maturity; herbage thinly strigose-hirsute with slender white hairs.

Leaves: Tufted basally and alternate along the stems, attenuate into slender petioles; blades linear to linear-lanceolate, 0.5-2.5 mm wide, 1-3 cm long.

Flowers: Inconspicuous and crowded into short, faintly scorpioid spikes in bud, the internodes elongating after anthesis so fruits are distant and mostly axillary, on deflexed pedicels; calyx lobes lance linear, about 1 mm long, at anthesis strigose and reflexed; corolla salverform, barely 2 mm long, white, with a rotate limb about 1.5 mm in diameter.

Fruits: Burlike capsules 2 mm long, strigose, bearing hooked spines 1-2 mm long, on upper two-thirds; containing 2 nutlets, each about 1 mm long.

Ecology: Found in gravelly or sandy soils below 3,500 ft (1067 m); flowers March-April.

Distribution: s AZ, s CA; south to n MEX.

Notes: Often found in the creosote bush shrublands and under mesquite. Similar in appearance to Pectocarya but it has appressed-pubescent herbage to distinguish it.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Harpagonella is a diminutive form of harpago, meaning a small grappling hook, a reference to the calyx spines, while palmeri is named for Edward Palmer (1829-1911) who was a botanist who explored the southwestern US and northern Mexico.

Synonyms: None

Editor: SBuckley 2010, AHazelton 2015