Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Slender annual without a notable rosette, generally with coarse spreading hairs, sparsely glandular in inflorescence; stem decumbent or erect 3-30 cm, wiry, peeling.

Leaves: Linear to narrowly elliptic, 10-35 mm, minutely serrate, generally bluish green.

Flowers: Nodding inflorescence with a hypanthium 1.2-2.3 mm; sepals 2.5-4 mm, remaining adherent in pairs; petals 3-5 mm, yellow fading reddish, the bases having 0-2 red dots.

Fruits: Capsule generally 25-35 mm long, 0.7-1.2 mm wide, cylindric, more or less swollen by seeds, straight to wavy, subsessile.

Ecology: Found in sandy soil, on flats, often disturbed below 7,500 ft (2286 m); flowers in spring.

Notes: There is some question about the presence of this species in the region. Both Plants DB and Jepson suggest this is isolated as a species to the Great Basin region and to the north, while there are six collections indexed by SEINET in Arizona herbariums. The collections range from near Sedona to Maricopa county and north to the Utah border in the Paria River drainage. This species needs collecting to better our understanding of its distribution in Arizona.

Ethnobotany: Unknown, but other species in the genera have uses.

Etymology: Camissonia is named for Ludolf Karl Adelbert von Chamisso (1781-1838), a German botanist, while contorta means twisted.

Synonyms: Oenothera contorta, Oenothera cruciata, Oenothera dentata

Editor: SBuckley, 2010