Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Herbaceous annuals to perennials, to 50 cm tall, stems spreading to erect.

Leaves: Alternate, elliptic or lanceolate to ovate, to broadly wedge-shaped to spatulate, 1-5 cm long, margins toothed, at least at the tips with truncate, coarsely toothed apices, blades petiolate with stipules.

Flowers: Staminate and pistilate; staminate flowers with 5 petals to 2.5 mm long, sepals 5, to 2.5 mm long, with the edges abutting in bud, stamens 5-15 and generally in 2 sets with some longer than the others, glands acute, filaments fused into a column to 1 mm long, staminodes 0-3 at column tip, pistillate flowers with 5 obovate-cuneate petals with abundant, coarse hairs which extend betond the tips of the petals, sepals 5, overlapping in bud, nectar disk dissected, ovary 3-chambered, styles 3 and free, each with 2 lobes, the lobes not expanded, infloresences of groups of flowers with subtending bracts, borne at stem tips or in leaf or branch axils, staminate flowers generally distal to pistillate flowers, flowering stems with appressed to spreading hairs.

Fruits: Smooth capsules; seeds nearly smooth, not carunculate.

Ecology: Found on sandy soils, from 200-300 ft (61-91 m); flowering March-October.

Distribution: s CA, s AZ; south to c S. Amer.

Notes: Distinguished by being an annual reaching 50 cm with appressed hairs all over; small yellow-cream uni-sexual axillary flowers, the female, pistillate flowers possessing abundant coarse hairs on the back extending beyond the tip of the petals; and the smooth capsules and seeds.

Ethnobotany: Unknown.

Etymology: Ditaxis comes from the Greek dis, "two," and taxis, "rank," referring to the stamens which are in two whorls, and serrata means saw-toothed.

Editor: LCrumbacher 2012, FSCoburn 2015