Common Name: sangre de cristo

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Shrub

General: Loosely branching shrub, branches flexible, bark reddish brown, smooth, 0.5-1 m tall.

Leaves: When present, alternate, heart-shaped, margins with rounded teeth, glabrous and shiny, 1.5-7 cm long.

Flowers: Cream colored flowers with 5 petals united into a tube shape, stamens 8-10, united below into a column.

Fruits: Singular, large seeds contained in a globose capsule with a small protuberance at the tip.

Ecology: Found on sandy and gravelly slopes, plains, mesas, and foothills, from 2,000-3,000 ft (610-914 m); flowers July-August.

Notes: Called the Sangre de Cristo, the roots contain a red dye, and the clear sap is said to be able to seal wounds as it coagulates quickly on contact with the air. Most of the year this plant is a bunch of reddish barked stems, then all of a sudden you add water and you have beautiful heart-shaped leaves.

Ethnobotany: Stems used to make baskets.

Etymology: Jatropha is from the Greek iatros for doctor and trophe for food, while cardiophylla means heart leaves.

Synonyms: None

Editor: LCrumbacher, 2011