PLANT: Annual to short-lived perennial; stems usually much branched, erect to prostrate, leafy.

LEAVES: cauline, alternate in AZ, simple, serrate, spinulose to spinose.

INFLORESCENCE: axillary, flowers solitary or crowded, bracteate, glabrous to glandular; bracts entire, closely subtending each flower, the outer 2-3 herbaceous to membranous, the inner 2-3 translucent and conspicuously veined.

FLOWERS: subsessile (sometimes appearing pedicelled because bracts resemble sepals), actinomorphic to slightly zygomorphic; calyx tube membranes slightly distended in fruit, the lobes usually equal; corolla actinomorphic to slightly bilabiate, white, bluish, or red; stamens equally to unequally inserted on the upper tube or throat; filaments equal to subequal in length, glabrous; anthers usually exserted; style usually exserted.

CAPSULE: ellipsoid to ovoid; seeds 1-3 per locule.

NOTES: Ca. 13 spp.; AZ and TX, s to n S. Amer. (for Johannes Loesl, German botanist and physician).

REFERENCES: Dieter H. Wilken and J. Mark Porter, 2005, Vascular Plants of Arizona: Polemoniaceae. CANOTIA 1: 1-37.