Desert sand-verbena

Plants annual. Stems decumbent to ascending, often widely spreading, much branched in large plants, forming large, loose mats, elongate, usually with reddish tinge, glandular-pubescent to long viscid-villous. Leaves: petiole 0.5-5 cm; blade deltate-ovate to ovate or elliptic, 1-5 × 1-4.5 cm, margins entire to sinuate and ± undulate, adaxial surface glabrous or glandular-pubescent, abaxial surface glandular-pubescent. Inflorescences: peduncle longer than subtending petiole; bracts lanceolate to lance-ovate, 2.5-11 × 1-3 mm, papery, viscid-villous; flowers 15-35. Perianth: tube pink, 10-35 mm, limb usually magenta, with light eyespot, rarely white, 6-18 mm diam. Fruits usually winged, ± obdeltate in profile, 5-10 × 4-15 mm, indurate, ± rugose-veined, sometimes inconspicuously so; wings 3-5, not folded, without dilations, thin, truncate distally, equaling or extending slightly beyond conic apex of fruit body, interior spongy.

Varieties 2 (2 in the flora): w United States, nw Mexico.