Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Delicate winter-spring annual herb with stellate hairs throughout; stems weak, 4-45 cm, slender, prostrate and dichotomously branching.

Leaves: Opposite, petioled, palmately lobed with 5 or 7 broad lobes, leaves wider than long, 10-23 mm wide, entire to dentate.

Flowers: Inconspicuous in unbranched axillary umbels of 2-6 flowers; sepals and petals scalelike, 0.5 mm, the corolla greenish white; peduncles shorter than petioles.

Fruits: Green schizocarp splitting into 2 single-seeded segments, each ovate-globose, 1-2 mm, stellate-pubescent, turgid; fruits sessile or nearly so.

Ecology: Found in shaded places, under bushes and canopies, and especially beneath shrubs on north-facing arroyo banks, from below 3,500 ft (1067 m); flowers January-June.

Distribution: sw US from CA to TX; south to S. Amer.

Notes: Distinguished by its pale green color; weak sprawling habit and tendency to form an extensive mat; the downy, star-shaped hairs that cover the entire plant; and 5-lobed leaves.

Ethnobotany: In the Andes it is used to make a tea for breakfast, or to treat a cough or intestinal inflammation.

Etymology: Bowlesia is named for William Bowles (1705-1780) an Irish naturalist, while incana means grayish or hoary.

Synonyms: Bowlesia septentrionalis

Editor: SBuckley 2010, AHazelton 2015