Plant Name
Scientific Name: Chamaesyce polycarpa
Synonym: Euphorbia polycarpa
Common Name: Smallseed Sandmat
Plant Characteristics
Duration: Annual, Perennial
Growth Habit: Herb/Forb
Arizona Native Status: Native
Habitat: Desert
Flower Color: White, Light red
Flowering Season: Spring
Height: To only 4 inches (10 cm) tall
Description: The small flowers have 4, petal-like, often scalloped appendages, each with a red to black, pad-shaped gland at their base. Although individually small, the flowers are quite numerous. The leaves are green, fleshy, and oval-shaped with with acute to obtuse tips. The stems are reddish. The plants are prostrate to ascending and glabrous to hairy.
The similar Whitemargin Sandmat (Chamaesyce albomarginata) has whitish leaf margins and both it and Matted Sandmat (C. serpens) are more prostrate and have white stipules at the leaf bases.
Classification
Kingdom: Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom: Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision: Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division: Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class: Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass: Rosidae
Order: Euphorbiales
Family: Euphorbiaceae – Spurge family
Genus: Chamaesyce Gray – sandmat
Species: Chamaesyce polycarpa (Benth.) Millsp. ex Parish – smallseed sandmat
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