Common Name: Utah fendlerbush

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Shrub

General: Small, much branching shrub with reddish-brown, smooth bark that is often shredding, strigose, sprawling or ascending.

Leaves: Opposite, small, lanceolate, readily detaching from the stem, leaves often in small clusters, but if not, are opposite, 4-12 mm long, 1-6 mm wide, linear to linear oblanceolate, elliptic to ovate, entire margins to slightly revolute, hairs pustulate on underside.

Flowers: Tiny white flowers in small cymose clusters, hypanthium inconspicuous to 2 mm in fruit, sepals 1-1.5 mm long, petals 2-4 mm long, white.

Fruits: Tiny capsules 3-4 mm long.

Ecology: Found on gravelly and rocky slopes, woodlands, and open pine woods, from 5,000-8,000 ft (1676-2438 m); flowers June to September.

Notes: This plant looks similar to Fendlera wrightii when the latter is young, look to the leaves to tell them apart, often this sprawling shrub is distinctive with its opposite and bright green linear leaves.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Fendlerella is named for Augustus Fendler (1813-1883) a German plant collector who worked for Asa Gray and George Engelmann, while utahensis means of or from Utah.

Synonyms: None

Editor: LCrumbacher, 2011