Duration: Perennial
Nativity: Native
Lifeform: Forb/Herb
General: Perennial herb, up to 30 cm tall, from a woody base; stems erect or decumbent, diffusely branched throughout, the branches stout and quite leafy; young herbage covered with tiny white, inflated hairs; older herbage often nearly glabrous.
Leaves: Opposite and sessile, or on short, stout petioles up to 3 mm long; blades lance-oblong to lanceolate, 1-8 cm long and 3-11 mm wide, thick, succulent, waxy (glaucous), and usually with a few tiny scale-like hairs.
Flowers: Green to yellow, sessile, usually in clusters of 2 or 3 at branch tips; petals fused into a long tube, 3-4 cm long and 1 mm diameter, with 5 abruptly expanding lobes at the tip, the lobes forming a limb about 1 cm diameter, pale greenish-yellow to yellow or ivory-green.
Fruits: Achenes compressed, 6-7 mm long, with 3-5 papery wings, these 2-3 mm broad; containing a single pale brown, oblong seed, 4 mm long.
Ecology: Found in dry alkaline soils, on gypsum hillocks, and edges of salt flats, from 3,500-5,500 ft (1067-1676 m); flowers June-September.
Distribution: NM and w TX; south to n MEX.
Notes: Notable for being restricted to gypsum soils, this species is widespread in New Mexico and also found over the border into Texas and Mexico. It has thick fleshy leaves which are sparsely covered with minute, flattened white hairs; long, tube-shaped yellow-green flowers; and each fruit has 5 papery wings and contains a single seed. A. diffusa is similar with long green-yellow flowers, but that species has wavy (undulate) leaf edges; the leaves are on petioles more than 3 mm long; and is not restricted to gypsum soils.
Ethnobotany: Unknown
Etymology: Acleisanthes comes from the Greek a- without or lacking, cleis, something that closes or encloses, and anthos, flower, referring to the lack of showy bracts enclosing the flowers, which are found in many other members of the four o'clock family; lanceolata alludes to the lance-shaped leaves.
Synonyms: Selinocarpus lanceolatus
Editor: AHazelton 2017
