Mountain pinweed Mountain pinweed

Herbs, perennial. Stems: basal produced; flowering erect, 15–25 cm, sericeous. Leaves of flowering stems alternate; blade linear, 8–15 × 0.7–1.2 mm, apex acute to rounded, abaxial surface sparsely pilose on midvein and margins, adaxial glabrous. Pedicels 1 per axil, 1.5–2 mm. Flowers: calyx 1.9–2 mm, outer sepals longer than inner. Capsules ovoid, 1.6–1.8 × 1.2–1.3 mm, ± equaling calyx. Seeds 1(–2).

Flowering late summer; fruiting fall. Oak-juniper woodlands; of conservation concern; 2000–2300 m; N.Mex., Tex.; Mexico (Coahuila).

Lechea mensalis is known from open woodlands dominated by species of oak and juniper at only two locations in the United States: the Guadalupe Mountains of southeastern New Mexico and adjacent Texas and the Chisos Mountains of west Texas; it also occurs in adjacent Coahuila, Mexico.