Plant Description
Hardwood shrub with dense erect growth, rarely tree-like, smooth, pale gray to reddish-gray bark, older branches flecked with scales, younger twigs smooth to sparsely hairy. Mature fruits with white, feathery, twisted styles that glow in back lighting.
Stems are branched and woody; leaves are grayish-green but paler green beneath, toothed on the upper margins and deeply veined, obovate or wider at tips than at attachment; small petal-less flowers, green sepals form a tube with pinkish flared lobes.
Habitat
Found on dry slopes and along washes, often in chaparral or pinyon-juniper woodlands.
Leaves
Small, 1 inch long and 1/2 inch wide, wedge-shaped and toothed at upper margins, rounded apically, impressed veins above, dark green on top and somewhat hairy and grayish-green beneath. Winter-deciduous.
Flowers
Flowers solitary or in axillary clusters of 2 to 3, on short stems, 5 sepals, no petals; the floral tube flared with 20 or more extruded stamens and 1 pistil. The styles of the pistils grow up to 4 inches at maturity and are feathery and twisted.
Fruit
Small slender achene with long, feathery, spirally twisted tail (up to 4 inches).