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pinyon spineflower, riverside spineflower, Xantus' 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

thinly pubescent.

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.

Achenes

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

Seeds

embryo straight or rarely curved.

2n

= 38, 42.

Chorizanthe xanti var. xanti

Chorizanthe subg. Amphietes

Phenology Flowering Apr–Jul.
Habitat Sandy to gravelly places in mixed grassland, saltbush and chaparral communities, pine-oak woodlands
Elevation (60-)300-1600 m ((200-)1000-5200 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
CA
[BONAP county map]
w United States; nw Mexico; sw South America
Discussion

Variety xanti is found in the Coast Ranges from western Merced, eastern Monterey, and San Benito counties south to the Transverse Ranges of northern Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, thence eastward along the northern foothills of the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains to extreme southwestern San Bernardino County, and then northward through the Tehachapi Mountains of central and eastern Kern County onto the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, going as far north as Madera County. In 1935, a disjunct population was sampled near Benton Station in southern Mono County (Robinson & Lindner 20, RSA) but it has not been recollected.

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