Mexican Cryptantha

Description

Cryptantha mexicana can be distinguished by its ovate-triangular nutlets with coarse, rounded tubercles and interspersed small papillae and a distinctive, triangular, excavated attachment scar in the lower 2/3 of the ventral face. The species is closely related to and has very similar nutlets to C. albida, with C. mexicana differing (according to Johnston 1961) in having more "bristly green herbage, larger ... broader fruiting calyces, ... more elongate, conspicuously bracted cymes ... spring-flowering [as opposed to summer-flowering in C. albida] with several to many dichotomously branching stems