''Petalonyx linearis'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Loasaceae known by the common name narrowleaf sandpaper plant. It is native to the deserts of eastern California, western Arizona and northwestern Mexico, where it grows in scrub and other habitat. It is a rounded clumpy

subshrub A subshrub (Latin ''suffrutex'') or dwarf shrub is a short shrub, and is a woody plant. Prostrate shrub is a related term. "Subshrub" is often used interchangeably with "bush".Jackson, Benjamin, Daydon; A Glossary of Botanic Terms with their Der ...

made up of many rough-haired, erect stems up to a meter tall. The cylindrical stems are lined evenly with linear to widely lance-shaped leaves 1 to 2.5 centimeters long. The inflorescence at the end of each stem is a

raceme A raceme ( or ) or racemoid is an unbranched, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along the shoots that bear the flowers. The oldest flowers grow close to the base and new flowers are produced as the s ...

of many small five-petalled white flowers surrounded by rounded or oval

bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of ...

s with pointed, lobed, or notched tips.

External links

Jepson Manual TreatmentUC Photos gallery
Loasaceae Flora of the California desert regions Flora of the Sonoran Deserts Flora of Arizona Flora of Northwestern Mexico Natural history of the Colorado Desert Taxa named by Edward Lee Greene {{Cornales-stub