Intermountain milkwort

Polygala intermontana T. Wendt, J. Arnold Arbor. 60: 505. 1979, based on P. acanthoclada A. Gray var. intricata Eastwood, Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci., ser. 2, 6: 283. 1896

Subshrubs or shrubs, multi-stemmed, sometimes mat-forming, 1.5–10 dm. Stems erect to sprawling, densely pubescent or glabrate, with dense, matted or shaggy tomentum, hairs appressed, incurved, or, occasionally, irregularly spreading. Leaves sessile or subsessile, rarely with narrow, petiolelike base to 1(–2) mm; blade linear to oblanceolate or obovate, (3–)4–20(–25) × 0.8–3(–3.5) mm, base long-cuneate, apex rounded to acute, surfaces densely pubescent, hairs incurved. Racemes terminal, sometimes aggregated into pseudopanicles or reduced and appearing fascicu­late, 1.5 × 0.7–1.3 cm; rachis thorn-tipped; peduncle 0–0.1 cm; bracts deciduous, lanceolate or ovate. Pedicels (2.5–)3–7(–9) mm, glabrous. Flowers cream or greenish, (2.5–)3–4.7(–5.2) mm; sepals deciduous, ovate or elliptic, 1.3–3.3 mm, glabrous or with few incurved hairs subapically, margins sparsely ciliate; wings obovate, 2.5–4.9 × 1.5–3 mm, glabrous or sparsely pubescent subapically; keel (2–)2.5–3.4 mm, sac glabrous or appressed-pubescent in upper part, beak mostly absent, when present, a bluntly rounded projection, 0(–0.5) × 0(–0.5) mm, glabrous or pubescent. Capsules broadly ellipsoid, ovoid, or subglobose, 3.5–5.8 × 3.3–4.6 mm, base truncate to rounded, margins with narrow and even wing, glabrous. Seeds 2.8–4.2 mm, sparsely pubescent to subglabrous; aril 1.2–2.3 mm, lobes to 1/3 length of seed. 2n = 18.

Flowering spring–early summer(–fall). Sandy, gravelly, or loose silt flats, slopes, dunes, ridges, and badlands of diverse parent materials in open desert scrub or mountain slopes in pinyon-juniper-sagebrush woodlands, sagebrush scrub; 600–3000 m; Ariz., Calif., Nev., Utah.

Rhinotropis intermontana is named for its distri­bution in the Intermountain region of the United States, which is bounded by the Rocky Mountains on the east, the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range on the west, and the Mojave Desert to the south.