About

Polyctenium is a genus of flowering plants in the family Brassicaceae. It contains a single species, Polyctenium fremontii, the desert combleaf, a small and compact plant native to the northern Great Basin region of the Western United States. The plants are known by the common name combleaf, owing to the resemblance of their deeply lobed leaves to a comb. It grows in sagebrush shrub steppe in northeastern California, southeastern Oregon, southwestern Idaho, and northwestern Nevada.

It is named both in English and Greek for its deeply lobed leaves, which almost appear to be pinnately compound. It takes the other portion of its scientific name from John C. Frémont. Leaves have forked hairs, and the distal end of the leaf often has a single hair at the very tip. As is characteristic of the broccoli family, the white flowers have four petals in the shape of a cross.