Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Subshrub

General: Suffrutescent perennial herb to low shrub, less than 1 m tall; stems intricately branched.

Leaves: Opposite and petiolate; palmately compound with 3 leaflets, these 3--9 mm long by 1-4 mm wide, spine-tipped, the terminal leaflet longer than the lateral leaflets; stipules stiff, spine-tipped.

Flowers: Solitary in axils, 1 cm wide, with deciduous sepals; petals 5, purple to pink, twisted, claw-shaped, and deciduous.

Fruits: Obovoid capsule 4--5 mm wide, deeply 5-lobed, minutely strigose or hairy, rarely glandular or glabrous, with a persistant style 1--2 mm, wider at base; seeds 1 per chamber.

Ecology: Found on rocky hillsides and in sandy washes, below 4.000 ft (1219 m); flowers March-May and Nov-Jan.

Distribution: s CA to sw UT; south to Sonora and Baja Calif., MEX.

Notes: Further study is needed to determine if Fagonia longipes [Fagonia californica subsp. longipes], with minute, glandular hairs on fruits, represents a distinct evolutionary lineage. USDA lists them as synonyms.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Fagonia honors Guy-Crescent Fagon (1638--1718), French botanist, chemist, and physician to Louis XIV; laevis means smooth.

Synonyms: Fagonia californica. ssp. laevis, Fagonia californica. var. longipes, Fagonia longipes

Editor: AHazelton 2016