Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Subshrub

General: Perennial herb, up to 40 cm tall, from a woody root; stems several, obscurely 4-angled, ascending or spreading, branching; branchlets slender, gray, densely puberulent with appressed, strigose, whitish hairs.

Leaves: Opposite, on slender petioles 4-10 mm long, with leaf pairs emerging from the stem at right angles relative to the pair of leaves below it (decussate); blades ovate, 2-4 cm long and 6-18 mm wide, irregularly and coarsely dentate, bright green and finely puberulent.

Flowers: White to pink, in clusters of about 3 flowers at branch tips and in axils of upper leaves; each flower on a slender peduncle 3-8 mm long; calyx bell-shaped (campanulate), hairy, deeply divided into 5 unequal lobes; corolla twice as long as calyx, salverform, with a narrow tube topped with 5 abruptly spreading, rounded lobes; corolla tube and lobes white to cream colored, with the outside often tinged with red or pink.

Fruits: Nutlets pyrimid-shaped, strongly and coarsely reticulated, finely pubescent.

Ecology: Found in sandy soils and rocky slopes below 5,500 ft (1676 m); flowers April-August.

Distribution: AZ, NM, sw TX; south to s MEX.

Notes: Until recently this species was called Tetraclea coulteri, in the Verbena family (Verbenaceae). Now it has been re-classified into the closely related mint family (Lamiaceae) and renamed Clerodendrum coulteri. However, the change is so recent that none of the texts have adapted it. Look for relatively small, erect perennials, often with many stems from the same base; foliage that slightly gray-tinted due to the rough pubescence all over; opposite leaves and obscurely square-angled stems; clusters of attractive, 5-petaled white to pink flowers in the leaf axils; and a fruit of 4 furry nutlets. There are 2 varieties: Var. coulteri is as described above, with ovate leaves that are only slightly toothed. Var. angustifolia has smaller, narrowly oblong leaves, which are more obviously toothed than the typical variety. It also tends to have longer, more slender stems. The two varieties are said to intergrade.

Ethnobotany: Used as a ceremonial medicine and as a fever medicine.

Etymology: Tetraclea comes from the Greek tetra, four, and kleio, enclosed, alluding to the four nutlets surrounded by the calyx; coulteri is named for Dr. Thomas Coulter (1793-1843) an Irish botanist.

Synonyms: Tetraclea coulteri var. angustifolia, Clerodendrum coulteri, Tetraclea coulteri

Editor: SBuckley 2010, FSCoburn 2015, AHazelton 2017