''Stylocline intertexta'' is a species of flowering plant in the family

Asteraceae Asteraceae () is a large family (biology), family of flowering plants that consists of over 32,000 known species in over 1,900 genera within the Order (biology), order Asterales. The number of species in Asteraceae is rivaled only by the Orchi ...

known by the common names Morefield's neststraw and Mojave neststraw. It is native to the Mojave and

Sonoran Desert The Sonoran Desert () is a hot desert and ecoregion in North America that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, as well as part of the Southwestern United States (in Arizona and California). It ...

s of

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

, and

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

, where it grows in rocky, sandy desert soils. It likely evolved as a

hybrid Hybrid may refer to: Science * Hybrid (biology), an offspring resulting from cross-breeding ** Hybrid grape, grape varieties produced by cross-breeding two ''Vitis'' species ** Hybridity, the property of a hybrid plant which is a union of two diff ...

between woollyhead neststraw (''Stylocline micropoides'') and baretwig neststraw (''S. psilocarphoides''); it is a mix of their morphological traits and it occurs alongside both of them.Flora of North America
/ref> It reproduces itself, producing fertile offspring, and it meets other criteria for any other definition of a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

, so it was described to science as such in 1992.Morefield, J. D. (1992). Three new species of ''Stylocline'' (Asteraceae:Inuleae) from California and the Mojave Desert. ''Madroño'' 39:114-130. It is a small annual herb growing at ground level and reaching just a few centimeters in length. It is usually coated in white hairs, often woolly. The small, pointed leaves are oval to lance-shaped and measure up to 1.5 centimeters long. The

inflorescence In botany, an inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a plant's Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a system of branches. An inflorescence is categorized on the basis of the arrangement of flowers on a mai ...

bears spherical

flower heads A pseudanthium (; : pseudanthia) is an inflorescence that resembles a flower. The word is sometimes used for other structures that are neither a true flower nor a true inflorescence. Examples of pseudanthia include flower heads, composite flowers ...

each a few millimeters in diameter. The head has no

phyllaries In botanical terminology, a phyllary, also known an involucral bract or tegule, is a single bract of the involucre of a composite flower. The involucre is the grouping of bracts together. Phyllaries are reduced leaf-like structures that form one o ...

, just a ball of tiny woolly white flowers.

References

External links

Calflora Database: ''Stylocline intertexta'' (Morefield's neststraw, Tangled nest straw)Jepson Manual eFlora (TJM2) treatmentUC CalPhotos gallery
intertexta Flora of the California desert regions Flora of the Sonoran Deserts Flora of Arizona Flora of Utah Endemic flora of the United States Natural history of the Mojave Desert Natural history of the Colorado Desert Plants described in 1992 Flora without expected TNC conservation status {{Gnaphalieae-stub