Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Subshrub

General: Spreading to semi-erect subshrub, from a woody taproot, forming mats 20-40 cm in diameter; younger branchlets villous-hispidulous with minute spreading or retrorse hairs, and sometimes with pungent bristles.

Leaves: Clustered mostly on short branchlets along the main stems; blades linear or occasionally wider, to 1 cm long and 1 mm wide, the upper surface usually green and bearing scattered spreading pungent hairs that arise from bulbous bases.

Flowers: Pink and inconspicuous, sessile in leaf axils; calyx 3 mm long, with 5 narrowly lanceolate sepals, these hairy below the middle and bristle-tipped; corolla funnel-shaped, 7 mm long, pink.

Fruits: 1-2 nutlets maturing per calyx, these 1.5 mm long, papillate (bumpy).

Ecology: Found on gypsum or strongly gypseous soils; flowers May-August.

Distribution: NM, w TX

Notes: This low spreading subshrub is distinct due to its bristly herbage; clusters of linear leaves; and small funnel-shaped pink flowers which are sessile in the leaf axils. Distinguish from T. canescens based on the leaves; T. canescens has leaves which are somewhat oval-shaped and densely covered in white hairs, while T. hirsutissima has leaves which narrow and covered in stout bristles. Distinguish from T. gossypina also based on the leaves, which on T. gossypina are grayish and pubescent under the bristles, while the leaves on T. hirsutissima are green and glabrous beneath the bristles.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Tiquilia is derived from a vernacular name for this genus from the original collections in Peru; hispidissima comes from the term hispid, which means rough with firm, stiff hairs.

Editor: AHazelton 2017