Stylocline intertexta

Stylocline intertexta
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
(unranked): Asterids
Order: Asterales
Family: Asteraceae
Tribe: Inuleae
Genus: Stylocline
Species: S. intertexta
Binomial name
Stylocline intertexta
Morefield

Stylocline intertexta is a species of flowering plant in the aster family known by the common names Morefield's neststraw[1] and Mojave neststraw. It is native to the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts of California, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona, where it grows in rocky, sandy desert soils. It likely evolved as a hybrid between woollyhead neststraw (Stylocline micropoides) and baretwig neststraw (S. psilocarphoides); it is a mix of their morphological traits and it occurs alongside both of them.[2] It reproduces itself, producing fertile offspring, and it meets other criteria for any other definition of a species, so it was described to science as such in 1992.[3] It is a small annual herb growing at ground level and reaching just a few centimeters in length. It is usually coated in white hairs, often woolly. The small, pointed leaves are oval to lance-shaped and measure up to 1.5 centimeters long. The inflorescence bears spherical flower heads each a few millimeters in diameter. The head has no phyllaries, just a ball of tiny woolly white flowers.

References

  1. ↑ "Stylocline intertexta". Natural Resources Conservation Service PLANTS Database. USDA. Retrieved 4 December 2015.
  2. ↑ Flora of North America
  3. ↑ Morefield, J. D. (1992). Three new species of Stylocline (Asteraceae:Inuleae) from California and the Mojave Desert. Madroño 39:114-130.


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