Common Name: desert mountain mock orange

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Shrub

General: Erect shrub with strigose villous twigs that have yellowish-brown hairs.

Leaves: Opposite, ovate, 10-35 mm long, rounded at base, acute at apex, strigose villous and hirsute above, densely white villous beneath, the hairs erect.

Flowers: Solitary or 3 in a cluster, the hypanthium and calyx densely white strigose, the sepals ovate and 4 mm long, acuminate at apex, the corolla disciform, the petals ovate-suborbicular, 10 mm long, 8 mm wide, rounded at apex.

Fruits: Subglobose capsules, 5 mm in diameter.

Ecology: Found on rocky slopes often in wooded areas from 6,000-7,500 ft (1829-2286 m); flowers June-September.

Distribution: Ranges across very southern Arizona and New Mexico south into Mexico into the Sierra Madres.

Notes: Distinguished generally from other species by the more ovate leaves and the far more densely white villous hairs on the underside of the leaves.

Ethnobotany: Specific use of the species uknown, however the genus Philadelphus was widely used to make spear tips and arrows.

Etymology: Philadelphus is a Greek-derived name after Ptolemy Philadelphus, Greek King of Egypt 309-247 BC, and madrensis, referring refers to the Sierra Madre mountains in Mexico.

Synonyms: None

Editor: SBuckley, 2011