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Hernandez spineflower, Hernandez's spineflower, San Benito spineflower

Habit Plants prostrate to spreading or erect, mostly thinly pubescent.
Stems

sometimes disarticulating at each node.

Leaf

blades linear to lanceolate, obovate, round, or spatulate.

Inflorescences

bracts mostly 2, opposite, scalelike or if leaflike then similar to basal leaves only reduced, occasionally deciduous in early anthesis, with or without awns.

Involucres

cylindric to narrowly turbinate, campanulate, or urceolate, occasionally ventricose basally, 3-,5-, or 6-toothed, with or without membranous or scarious margins;

teeth erect to spreading or divergent, connate at least 1/2 their length, typically shallow, mostly unequal, with alternating long and short awns, often with anterior one longest.

Flowers

1(–2), white to pink or rose, maroon or purple, or yellow, thinly pubescent at least along midribs abaxially;

stamens 3–9;

filaments adnate at base of floral tube or faucially;

filaments sometimes connate into short tube.

Outer tepals

emarginate or subcordate apically.

Achenes

brown, lenticular or globose-lenticular, or 3-gonous.

Seeds

embryo straight or rarely curved.

2n

= 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 46.

Chorizanthe biloba var. immemora

Chorizanthe subg. Amphietes

Phenology Flowering May–Sep.
Habitat Sandy to gravelly soils, mixed grassland communities, pine-oak woodlands
Elevation 600-800 m (2000-2600 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
CA
[BONAP county map]
w United States; nw Mexico; sw South America
Discussion

Variety immemora is found on the eastern slope of the Diablo Range in southern San Benito County and in adjacent Monterey County. Hernandez spineflower is restricted to five small populations of a few individuals each. Plants of this taxon were variously identified as C. palmeri, C. biloba, or C. obovata prior to 1989. C. B. Hardham (1989) believed that the variety may be a product of past hybridization, given the variation in chromosome number. She also found meiotic chromosomes of three size classes, numerous nucleoli, and atypical pollen grains.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Species 39 (31 in the flora).

Most species of subg. Amphietes are found in California. Of the others, one is known only from southernmost Peru to central Chile (Chorizanthe commissuralis J. Rémy), while the rest are known only from Baja California, Mexico. Those include C. inequalis S. Stokes, C. turbinata Wiggins, C. mutabilis Brandegee, C. rosulenta Reveal, C. pulchella Brandegee, C. flava Brandegee, and C. interposita Goodman. The latter is the only member of sect. Clastoscapa, the only section of subg. Amphietes not found in our flora.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Source FNA vol. 5, p. 458. FNA vol. 5, p. 450.
Parent taxa Polygonaceae > subfam. Eriogonoideae > Chorizanthe > subg. Amphietes > sect. Ptelosepala > Chorizanthe biloba Polygonaceae > subfam. Eriogonoideae > Chorizanthe
Sibling taxa
C. biloba var. biloba
Subordinate taxa
Name authority Reveal & Hardham: Phytologia 66: 138. (1989) Reveal & Hardham: Phytologia 66: 113. (1989)
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