Eastwood's sandwort

Arenaria eastwoodiae Rydberg, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 31: 406. 1904; A. fendleri A. Gray var. eastwoodiae (Rydberg) S. L. Welsh

Plants densely matted, green, not glaucous, with woody base. Stems erect, (8-)10-25 cm, glabrous or stipitate-glandular. Leaves: basal leaves persistent; cauline leaves usually in 2-4 pairs, reduced distally; basal blades spreading to recurved, needlelike, 1-3(-3.5) cm × 0.5-0.7 mm, flexuous to rigid, herbaceous, apex spinose, glabrous to puberulent, not glaucous. Inflorescences (1-)3-17-flowered, ± open cymes. Pedicels 3-30 mm, glabrous or stipitate-glandular. Flowers: sepals green or purplish, 1-3-veined, lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, (3.5-)4-6.5 mm, not enlarging in fruit, margins broad, apex narrowly acute to acuminate, glabrous or stipitate-glandular; petals yellowish white or sometimes brownish to reddish pink, broadly oblong-elliptic to oblanceolate, 4-6.5 mm, 0.9-1.1 times as long as sepals, apex rounded; nectaries narrowly longitudinally rectangular, apically cleft or emarginate, adjacent to filaments opposite sepals, 1-2 mm. Capsules 4-6 mm, glabrous. Seeds brown, ovoid to suborbicular with hilar notch, 1.2-1.7 mm, papillate, subechinate; tubercles conical.

Varieties 2 (2 in the flora): w North America.

The Hopi Indians may use Eremogone eastwoodiae as an emetic (B. Maguire 1960).

The nectaries in Eremogone eastwoodiae are different from those of most other species of the genus in North America since they are a separate bilobed structure adjacent to, but not a direct enlargement of, the filament bases opposite the sepals.