Common Name: California ayenia

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Shrub

General: Low, diffusely branched shrub 10-45 cm tall with slender branches with a fine tomentose covering that is gray green, with hairs that are curved, simple, to forked, with stipules 1 mm long or less.

Leaves: Alternate and on slender petioles 2-7 mm long, blades ovate to elliptic-ovate, 5-15 mm long, serrate and minutely stellate-puberulent and often slightly canescent on both sides, denser below.

Flowers: Solitary in axils, with pedicels 2-6 mm long, the flower very unique with 5 sepals and petals, the petals hood shaped and canopy-like with slender bases with the top attached to the stamen tube, the 5 stamens alternating with sterile stamens.

Fruits: Subglobose capsule about 4 mm in diameter, minutely stellate-puberulent and sparsely papillate with dark, purplish black glands.

Ecology: Found on rocky slopes and in canyons below 3,500 ft (1067 m), flowers September-April.

Distribution: Ranges across the lower Sonoran Desert into northern Sonora and south into Baja California.

Notes: The distinctive curved petals of this genus are difficult to mistake for anything else, however, it can be a very nondescript low shrub otherwise, pay attention to the serrate leaves and the remnants of flowers past. Among the Ayenia, the distinction is its low desert habitat along with the broadly ovate leaves and the short tuberculate fruits.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Ayenia is named for Louis de Noailles (1713-1793) the Duke of d-Ayen, while compacta means growing in compact form.

Synonyms: Ayenia californica

Editor: SBuckley 2011