Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Annual herb, 1 to several stems from base, simple, erect, ascending or slightly decumbent, 10-30 cm long, hispid herbage with slender spreading hairs 1-2.5 mm long; delicate hairs among bases of spreading hairs, stems, roots, and leaves, particularly midribs that are distinctively purplish-red.

Leaves: Lanceolate to linear-oblanceolate, 1.5-5 mm broad, 1-6 cm long, basal ones gradually narrowed to slender base, acute to obtuse at apex, strigose and with some spreading hairs, not noticeable pustulate.

Flowers: Spikes compact at anthesis, elongated and lax in fruit, to 15 cm long, naked or few-bracteate toward base; calyx lobes ovate, distinct about one-half way to base, densely tawny-hirsute; calyx 3-4 mm long in fruit, at length circumsessile, lobes equal; corolla 2 mm long, 1.5-2 mm broad, white.

Fruits: Nutlets usually 2, sometimes fewer, ovoid, short-acute, 1.5-2 mm long, transversely rugulose, reticulate dorsal and lateral keels.

Ecology: Found on arid sandy hillsides and plains below 5,000 ft (1524 m); flowers February-May.

Distribution: CA, NV, UT, AZ, w NM; south to n MEX.

Notes: Distinguished by the low-growing, often bunchy habit; ascending to prostrate red stems; red mid veins and margins of leaves; small white flowers and especially the deep-red dye from stem bases and roots.

Ethnobotany: Red coating on outside leaves and lower stems used as a red pigment to paint the body and face.

Etymology: Plagiobothrys is derived from Greek plagios, oblique or placed sideways, and bothros, a pit or scar, arizonicus is named for Arizona.

Synonyms: None

Editor: SBuckley 2010, FSCoburn 2015