Habit: Annual or subshrub, canescent to densely woolly, or glabrous in age; hairs forked.
Leaf: generally opposite, occasionally alternate at base, sessile or short-petioled, petiole <= 2.5 mm; blade round to lanceolate, cordate, base wedge-shaped or oblique, tip acute to obtuse, margins entire, papery to fleshy.
Inflorescence: axillary head-like cymes, flowers 1--3(5), sessile, +- enclosed by 2 +- opposite leaves hardened and fused in age; bracts, bractlets persistent, ovate, scarious, woolly.
Flower: bisexual; perianth parts 5, free, keeled, outer 3 > inner 2, scarious or leathery, glabrous or woolly, tip acute or obtuse; stamens 5, filaments fused at base into short tube, anthers 2-chambered, pseudostaminodes 0 or short, triangular, +- 0.2 mm; ovary +- spheric, ovule 1, style 0 or short, +- 0.1 mm, stigmas 2-lobed, deltoid (irregularly 3-lobed).
Fruit: +- spheric, wall membranous.
Seed: obovoid, brown-red.
Species In Genus: 7 species: western North America, West Indies, deserts.
Etymology: (Ivar T. Tidestrom, Swedish-born botanist of southwest United States, 1864--1956)
Jepson eFlora Author: Mihai Costea
Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)Key to Tidestromia
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