Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Subshrub

General: Herbaceous, monoecious perennials, to 70 cm tall, stems erect, herbage green, tinged purple, plants with clear or milky sap.

Leaves: Alternate, linear, 1-4 cm long and to 2 mm wide, margins entire, blades petiolate with minute stipules blade bases generally with 2 glands.

Flowers: Staminate and pistillate in flower-like infloresences; staminate flowers of a 2-lobed calyx with 2 stamens and without petals or nectary disks, pistillate flowers 3-6 per inflorescence, well separated, ovary 3-chambered, styles free but fused below, to 1 mm long, infloresence of axillary or terminal spikes spikes 2-7 cm long, subtended by glandular bracts, glands of pistillate bracts stalked, to 1 mm long.

Fruits: Three-lobed capsules, to 3.5 mm long (sometimes longer), the capsule separating into 3 segments, each segment with 1 seed, the central axis persistent. Seeds smooth and pointed, to 2 mm long, attachment scars without appendages.

Ecology: Found on dry slopes and in washes, to 5,000 ft (1524 m); flowering April and October.

Distribution: Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico; Mexico.

Notes: This interesting plant has green infloresences and fruits alternately ranked along long stems. Look to the globose, 3-lobed, green fruits with bright red veins and styles (with 1 central vein per lobe), the staminate flowers are minute with conspicuous greenish-pink glands with brown or yellow tips. Look for this species in Mohave, Pima, and Yuma counties.

Ethnobotany: Specific uses for this species are unknown, but other species in the genus have uses; plant used as a cathartic, compound decoction of root taken and used as a wash after childbirth, used as a wash for irregular periods, and taken by men to regain potency.

Etymology: Stillingia is named after Dr. Benjamin Stillingfleet (1702-1771), a British botanist and the author of the first English language work on the principles of Linnaeus, and linearifolia means with narrow, linear, parallel-sided leaves.

Synonyms: None

Editor: LCrumbacher2012