Habit: Annual [perennial herb], +- fleshy, from taproot or fibrous roots, generally glabrous.
Stem: generally several, generally spreading to ascending.
Leaf: cauline [basal and cauline], simple, linear to spoon-shaped, fleshy; basal rosetted.
Inflorescence: scapose, raceme, panicle, or umbel, bracts leaf-like or not; bracts generally < sepals, scarious; flowers generally on 1 side of axis, deciduous or not in fruit.
Flower: sepals 2, ovate, green, scarious-margined or not, persistent in fruit; petals 5, > sepals; stamens 5--10, anthers yellow; style 1, stigmas 3.
Fruit: 3-valved, ovoid.
Seed: 6--many, shiny or dull, black or gray [dark brownish red].
Species In Genus: 25--35 species: America.
Etymology: (Greek: rockrose-flower)
Jepson eFlora Author: John M. Miller & C. Matt Guilliams
Reference: Hershkovitz 2006 Gayana Bot 63:13--74
Unabridged Reference: Hershkovitz 1990 Phytologia 68:267--270; Hershkovitz 1991a Ann Missouri Bot Gard 78:1009--1021; Hershkovitz 1991b Phytologia 70:209--225; Hershkovitz 1992 Syst Bot 17:220--238; Hershkovitz & Zimmer 2000 Molec Phylogen Evol 15:419--439; Hinton 1975 Brittonia 27:197--208; Kelley et al. 2003 FNANM 4:460--464.Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)Key to Cistanthe
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