Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Vine

General: Annual with slender, weak and scrambling stems, sometimes 1 m long, uncinate-bristly on angles, herbage bright green, sparsely hispid throughout.

Leaves: Oblong to ovate-lanceolate in outline, 1.5-8 cm long, 0.5-3.5 cm broad with 2-5 lobes on each side, these oblong, ovate, or nearly deltoid, usually retrorse, obtuse at tips, petioles moderately winged, auriculate-clasping.

Flowers: Solitary or in 1-4 flowered cymes on pedicels 1-2.5 cm long, sparsely uncinate-hispid; calyx lobes lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, 1.5-2 mm wide, 5-7 mm long, sparsely hispid; auricles barely 1 mm long; corolla 8-12 mm broad, blue or violet; corolla scales triangular, purple, margins fimbriate; styles 2.5-3 mm long.

Fruits: Capsule 4-5 mm in diameter, hispid with subulate white hairs.

Ecology: Found in canyons and under bushes and trees, rocky hillsides and plains below 3,000 ft (914 m); flowers February-May.

Distribution: AZ, s CA

Notes: The weak and crawling stems often help to diagnose this species, as does the obtuse leaf lobes and dark spots at the base of the petals.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Pholistoma is from the Greek pholis, scale and stoma, mouth, referring to the scales in the throat of the flower, while auritum means eared, or having and ear, referring to the clasping base of the leaves.

Synonyms: None

Editor: SBuckley, 2010