''Cleomella plocasperma'' is a species of flowering plant in the cleome family known by the common name twisted cleomella and alkali stinkweed. It is native to the

Great Basin The Great Basin () is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets to the ocean, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja Californi ...

and

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert (; ; ) is a desert in the rain shadow of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains and Transverse Ranges in the Southwestern United States. Named for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous Mohave people, it is located pr ...

in the western United States, where it grows mainly in wet,

alkaline soils Alkali, or alkaline, soils are clay soils with high pH (greater than 8.5), a poor soil structure and a low infiltration capacity. Often they have a hard calcareous layer at 0.5 to 1 metre depth. Alkali soils owe their unfavorable physico ...

such as those around

hot spring A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a Spring (hydrology), spring produced by the emergence of Geothermal activity, geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow ...

s. There is a

disjunct population In biology, a taxon with a disjunct distribution is one that has two or more groups that are related but considerably separated from each other geographically. The causes are varied and might demonstrate either the expansion or contraction of a s ...

in the Bruneau Valley of southwestern

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...

.Moseley, R. K. (1995)
Status of ''Blepharidachne kingii'' (King's desertgrass) and ''Cleomella plocasperma'' (Alkali cleomella) in Idaho
. Idaho Dept. of Fish & Game. It grows with other

halophytic A halophyte is a salt-tolerant plant that grows in soil or waters of high salinity, coming into contact with saline water through its roots or by salt spray, such as in saline semi-deserts, mangrove swamps, marshes and sloughs, and seashores. ...

species such as saltgrass and

greasewood Greasewood is a common name shared by several plants: * ''Adenostoma fasciculatum'' is a plant with white flowers that is native to Oregon, Nevada, California, and northern Baja California. This shrub is one of the most widespread plants of the ...

. This is an annual herb producing a smooth, hairless stem which divides into several erect or upright branches which may exceed half a meter tall. The sparse leaves are each split into three narrow leaflets. The flowers occur in a

raceme A raceme () or racemoid is an unbranched, indeterminate growth, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along the shoots that bear the flowers. The oldest flowers grow close to the base and new flowers are ...

at the top of each stem branch. Each flower has four yellow petals and several long

stamen The stamen (: stamina or stamens) is a part consisting of the male reproductive organs of a flower. Collectively, the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filament ...

s which may be over a centimeter long. The fruit is a capsule with large lobes. It hangs at the tip of the remaining flower receptacle.

References

External links

Jepson Manual TreatmentPhoto gallery
plocasperma Plants described in 1871 {{Brassicales-stub