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Sleeping combseed

Pectocarya penicillata

Also called Short Leaved Combseed, Winged Combseed, Winged Petrocarya, Northern Pectocarya, Winged Pectocarya

Sleeping combseed
Photo: Stephen Laymon, Bureau of Land Management, Public domain
Family
Boraginaceae (Borage family)
Grows as
Annual
Native range
SW. Canada to Mexico (N. Baja California)
Climate
temperate

About

Pectocarya penicillata is a species of flowering plant in the borage family known by the common names sleeping combseed, shortleaf combseed, winged combseed and northern pectocarya. It is native to much of western North America from British Columbia to Wyoming to Baja California, where it grows in many types of habitat, including disturbed areas such as roadsides. This is an annual herb producing a slender, rough-haired stem, mostly decumbent in form, to a maximum length of about 25 centimeters. The small, pointed linear leaves are alternately arranged, widely spaced along the stem. The inflorescence is a series of flowers, each on a curved pedicel. The flower has small green sepals and tiny white petals. The fruit is an array of four nutlets each lined with comblike prickles.

Other Pectocarya plants

Chuckwalla combseed · Peninsular pectocarya · Broadfruit combseed · Little combseed · Curvenut combseed · Moth combseed · Combseed

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Pectocarya penicillata by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

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