Clokey’s greasebush

Forsellesia clokeyi Ensign, Amer. Midl. Naturalist 27: 504, fig. 2. 1942

Shrubs forming relatively low mounds or mats, (10–)15–25 cm. Stems: branchlets ascending, green to yellowish green during 1st (and sometimes 2d) year(s), eventually turning yellowish brown, very slender, less than 0.5 mm diam.; bark of older branches pale yellow to gray; tips ˂sharply pointed, flexible˃, not or only weakly spinescent; glabrous or sparsely puberulent. Leaves: stipules triangular to narrowly triangular or filiform, ˂0.2–0.5 mm˃, fused basal portion not or only slightly thickened, not darkened or glandular, free tips minute; blade oblanceolate to narrowly elliptic-oblanceolate, 4–6 × 1–1.5 mm, margins not thickened, apex short-acuminate to sharply acute, usually non-mucronate, sometimes mucronate, mucro 0.1–0.4 mm, glabrous. Inflorescences appearing axillary, usually flowers solitary. Flowers: sepals 3–5, obovate, 1.2–1.5 mm, often slightly unequal, ˂blunt to sharply acute˃, tips not spinescent; petals 3–5 (in different flowers on same plant), oblanceolate, 2–4 × 0.4–1 mm; stamens 4–6, in 1 equal series. Follicles 1, broadly ovoid, 3–4 mm, moderately striate, glabrous.

Flowering May–Jul. Crevices and ledges of limestone cliffs; of conservation concern; 2100–3000 m; Nev.

Glossopetalon clokeyi is known from the Spring (Charleston) Mountains in Clark County, where it occurs mostly at relatively inaccessible sites high on cliffs.