Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Twining vine with downward curving hairs on the stems; plants with milky sap.

Leaves: Opposite and short-petiolate, the petioles to 1.5 cm; blades 3-10 cm long, narrowly lanceolate and attenuate to the apex, hastate or sagittate to truncate at the base, with margins more or less conspicuously undulate (crisped), pubescent on the upper surface, midvein often whitened by a mat of hairs, the lower surface sparsely hairy.

Flowers: Pink, purple, or green in 4-10 flowered umbels, those on peduncles 1-5 cm long; pedicels with mostly curved or appressed hairs; flowers 6-10 mm long; calyx lobes lanceolate-attenuate, 2-5 mm long, more than 3 times longer than wide, pubescent both outside and toward the tips inside; corolla broadly cup-shaped, green to purplish and pubescent outside, dark purple, smooth and glabrous inside, or minutely hairy at base of crown ring; tube 2-3 mm long; lobes oblong to ovate-elliptic, 5-9 mm long.

Fruits: Follicles solitary, lanceolate-fusiform, long-attenuate to the tip, 9-16 cm long.

Ecology: Found in canyons often among shrubs from 3,000-5,500 ft (914-1676 m); flowers April-August.

Distribution: AZ, NM, s CO, s OK, TX; south to c MEX.

Notes: A twining perennial vine with milky sap, similar to F. cynanchoides in many ways vegetatively; distinctive in the length of the fruiting peduncles, with peduncles of F. crispum averaging about a quarter as long as the subtending leaves and those of F. cyanchoides at least as long as the leaves; the often thinner, more pubescent leaves with wavy margins (the botanical term is -crisped-; think of kale leaves) and the lanceolate calyx lobes as opposed to ovate in cynanchoides.

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

Etymology: Funastrum is from funis, a rope, cord, or sheet and astrum, incomplete resemblance, while crispum means curled or wavy.

Synonyms: Sarcostemma crispum

Editor: SBuckley 2010, FSCoburn 2015, AHazelton 2015

Plant: Perennial herbaceous vine; stems with downward curving hairs; milky sap

Leaves: lanceolate to mostly narrowly lanceolate to linear, hastate or sagittate to truncate at the base, attenuate to the apex, the margins (especially of younger leaves) more or less conspicuously undulate, 3-10 cm long, pubescent above, the midvein often whitened by a mat of hairs, the lower surface somewhat more sparsely hairy, the petioles 2-15 mm long

INFLORESCENCE: UMBELS 4-10 flowered, the peduncles mostly 1-5 cm long, the pedicels with mostly curved or appressed hairs

Flowers: 6-10 mm long; calyx lobes lanceolate-attenuate, 2.5-5 mm long, more than 3 times longer than wide, pubescent both outside and toward the tips inside; corolla broadly cup-shaped, green to purplish and pubescent outside, dark purple (rarely green), smooth and glabrous inside, or minutely hairy at the base of the crown ring, the tube ca. 2-3 mm long, the lobes oblong to ovate-elliptic, 5-9 mm long; crown ring free from the base of the vesicles, 0.6-1.1 mm high, the vesicles arising from the column ca. 1 mm above its union with the corolla tube, ca. 1.5 mm long in the upper portion, mostly as broad as or broader than long, flattened at the top and saccate below on the tangential surface, the lower portion constricted to a stalk-like base; column well developed, ca. 2 mm high beneath the anther wings, these 0.8-1 mm long; corpusculum ca. 0.25 mm long, the pollinia 0.7-0.9 mm long

Fruit: FOLLICLES single, lanceolate-fusiform, long attenuate, 9-16 cm long

Misc: 900-1600 m (2900-5200 ft); Apr-Aug

REFERENCES: Sundell, Eric. 1994. Asclepiadaceae. J. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. Volume 27, 169-187.