Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Small annual herbs, 4-25 cm tall; stems ascending to erect, sometimes prostrate and spreading; herbage strigose.

Leaves: Generally alternate, sessile; blades 0.5-4 cm long, linear, strigose to sharp-bristled.

Flowers: Tiny and white, on pedicels that recurve and extend in fruit to 2.5-4 mm long; calyx lobes free, equal in length; corolla funnel-shaped, white, the limb 0.5-2.5 mm wide.

Fruits: Nutlets 4, together forming a cross-shape; each nutlet 2.5-4.5 mm long, linear to spoon-shaped-oblong, recurved, with a conspicuous toothed margin differing in texture from the rest of the nutlet; margin teeth fused at the base, the width of the teeth at

Ecology: Found in washes and roadsides in creosote-bush scrub and Joshua-tree woodland, below 5,000 ft (1524 m); flowers February-May.

Distribution: s CA to sw UT and w TX; south to nw MEX (Baja California)

Notes: P. platycarpa is a fairly common delicate annual herb in the springtime wash bottoms of the Sonoran Desert. The genus is characterized by the plus-sign shape that the nutlets form together. P. platycarpa is distinguished from other Pectocarya spp. by the broad, conspicuous margin with wide, fused teeth which surrounds each nutlet. P. recurvata nutlets are more strongly recurved and have a inconspicuous margins with sharp, narrow, deeply dissected teeth; P. heterocarpa has two somewhat straight nutlets with conspicuous margins and two recurved nutlets with inconspicuous margins out of each set of four.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Pectocarya is from the Greek pectos, combed and karua, nut; platycarpa is from the Greek platys (broad) and karpos (fruit).

Synonyms: Pectocarya gracilis var. platycarpa, Pectocarya linearis var. platycarpa

Editor: AHazelton 2015