Mohave sandwort

Arenaria macradenia S. Watson, Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts 17: 367. 1882

Plants tufted, green, not glaucous, with woody base. Stems erect, (10-)20-40(-70) cm, glabrous to stipitate-glandular. Leaves: basal leaves sparse or absent; cauline leaves usually in 5-12+ pairs, not significantly reduced; basal blades ascending to arcuate-spreading or recurved, needlelike or narrowly linear, (0.7-)2-6(-7) cm × 0.8-2 mm, ± rigid, herbaceous to subsucculent, apex blunt to spinose, glabrous, not glaucous. Inflorescences 3-20(-30)-flowered, ± compact cymes; branches ascending to erect. Pedicels 3-45 mm, glabrous or stipitate-glandular. Flowers: sepals 1-3-veined, ovate to lanceolate or elliptic, 4.5-7.2 mm, to 8 mm in fruit, margins narrow to broad, apex acute to acuminate, glabrous to sparsely stipitate-glandular; petals white or yellowish, oblanceolate to spatulate, 6-11 mm, 1-2 times as long as sepals, apex entire or erose; nectaries thickened, molarlike, apically 2-lobed, 1-1.5 mm, or narrowly longitudinally rectangular, truncate, 0.7-0.8 mm, densely minutely pubescent with erect to spreading hairs. Capsules 6-8 mm, glabrous. Seeds greenish or reddish brown to blackish, suborbicular to pyriform or ovoid, 1.3-3.2 mm, tuberculate, sometimes echinate on abaxial ridge; tubercles low, rounded to conic.

Varieties 2 (2 in the flora): North America.

Eremogone macradenia is in the Center for Plant Conservation's National Collection of Endangered Plants.