Duration: Perennial
Nativity: Native
Lifeform: Forb/Herb, Subshrub
General: Perennial herbs, 10-30 cm tall; stems simple, few to several from base, strigose and spreading-hirsute;
Leaves: Mostly basal, a few alternate on the stem, sessile; oblanceolate with entire margins, to 9 cm long and 15 mm wide, strigose and appressed-setose.
Flowers: White and yellow, short-pediceled in short-cylindric or subcapitate cymes, these not much elongating at maturity; calyx 5-8 mm long in flower, extending to 8-10 mm long in fruit, the segments linear-lanceolate, densely setose; corolla salverflorm, white with a bright yelow throat, the tube 12-14 mm long and the limb 10-14 mm wide, heterostylic.
Fruits: Nutlets usually 4 per flower, 3 mm long, the dorsal surface narrowly ovate, surfaces finely rugose-tuberculate, winged on the margins.
Ecology: Found on gravelly-calcareous or gypsum soils from juniper savanna down to desert scrub, from 4,500-7,500 ft (1372-2286 m); flowers April-June.
Distribution: c and s NM, east to w TX
Notes: Cryptantha is a genus of bristly herbs with white or yellow flowers in spikes that are usually 1-sided and curling like a scorpion-s tail (-scorpioid-). C. paysonii is an uncommon perennial Cryptantha, known from central and southern New Mexico and neighboring west Texas. Look for a showy perennial with dense basal tufts of bristly oblanceolate leaves; multiple leafy flowering stalks arising out of the tufts; each of the stalks ending in several rounded clusters of white flowers with bright yellow centers. It is quite similar to the also uncommon C. oblata, the only difference being in the flowers, which are smaller in C. oblata (corolla tube 6-10 mm long and limb 6-10 mm wide) and homostylic (styles are all the same length), with pale yellow throats. C. paysonii is heterostylic (with styles of differing lengths) with larger corollas. Also similar to the more common C. cinerea, but that species has smooth, shiny nutlets and has short scales in the inside of the corolla tube.
Ethnobotany: Unknown, but other species in the genus have uses.
Etymology: Cryptantha comes from the Greek krypto, "hidden," and anthos, "flower," a reference to the first described species in the genus which has inconspicuous flowers that self-fertilize without opening; paysonii honors Edwin Blake Payson (1893-1927) who described several species of Cryptantha.
Synonyms: Hemisphaerocarya paysonii, Oreocarya paysonii
Editor: AHazelton 2015
