Threadplant
Pterostegia drymarioides
Photographed at White Canyon Wilderness, Pinal Co., Arizona. March 2014. The identification of this plant had me and several of my colleagues stumped until Liz Makings helped.
LEAVES: Small, but very distinctive leaves are frequently divided into two lobes.
ANNUAL: Frail, herbaceous spring plant growing prostrate as a many-branched, loose
mat in gravelly soil.
FLOWERS: Very small, inconspicuous greenish white flowers are in the
leaf axils.
FRUIT: Very small, single seeded fruits are three-sided like other buckwheats.
RANGE: Grows obscured in the shade beneath shrubs as in upper Sonoran Desert,
chaparral or juniper woods. Might be more common than thought because it hard to see.
UNARMED