Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Subshrub

General: Low perennial forb to subshrub with many slender, erect, or ascending branches 10-50 cm tall and usually about 1 mm or less in diameter, light green, pellucid-punctate.

Leaves: Filiform to linear-oblong, sessile, entire, 5-15 mm long.

Flowers: Terminal racemes, interrupted, mainly less than 5 cm, on slender pedicels 2-8 mm long; sepals broadly ovate or rounded-deltoid, 1-2 mm long, sometimes retuse; petals ovate to broadly elliptic, 2-3 mm wide, 3-5 mm long, greenish yellow or white, slightly suffused with purple, pellucid-punctate; stamens slightly shorter than petals; anthers broadly ovate, apiculate.

Fruits: Coriaceous capsule, deeply obcordate, 3-7 mm wide and about as high, sessile or on a stipe about 1 mm.

Ecology: Found on dry rocky slopes and flats from 2,000-5,000 ft (610-1524 m); flowers March-June.

Distribution: AZ, sw NM, TX; south to c MEX.

Notes: This can be an inconspicuous shrub, sometimes difficult to pick out except when flowering. It is low-growing and the pungent scent is distinctive. This, combined with the green, glaucous, gland-dotted foliage, linear leaves, urceolate-like but unfused flower which is a beautiful delicate purple color, and the fruit looking like two thick horns or a butterfly should lead you to this species.

Ethnobotany: Unknown, but other species in the genus have uses.

Etymology: Thamnosma is from the Greek for odorous shrub, while texana means of or from Texas.

Synonyms: None

Editor: SBuckley 2010, FSCoburn 2015