Spreading Moonpod (Acleisanthes diffusa)

   

Overview, Spreading Moonpod, Otero Mesa, Otero Co., NM. Photograph by Wynn Anderson.

 

Flowers and foliage (left) and fruit (right), Otero Mesa, Otero Co., NM. Photographs by Wynn Anderson.

• Common English Names: Spreading Moonpod
• Common Spanish Names: None known.
• Scientific Name: Acleisanthes diffusa (a-kly-SAN-thes dih-FEW-sah)(formerly Selinocarpus diffusa)
• Family: Nyctaginaceae (Four O'Clock Family)
• Geographic Range: Dry clays or silty to sandy soils, usually gypseous or calcareous in nature, from extreme southwestern Oklahoma and scattered in the Texas Panhandle through south-central New Mexico to the northern portion of the Trans-Pecos of western Texas.
• Description: Leafy, mounding perennial, or semi-woody subshrub, mounding to prostrate and spreading, somewhat thick and slightly fleshy, rough (scabrous), grayish-green leaves with undulating margins. Flowers single in leaf axils, tubular trumpet shaped to 2 inches long, tube dull greenish, sometimes lightly reddish tinged, terminal flaring white to yellowish with green throat and midribs. Fruit small fruit with short pale pinkish to white translucent wings.

Last Update: 30 Sep 2013