Plant: shrub, Much branched shrub 1-2 m high; young stems strigose, occasionally bearing glanduar capitate trichomes, these especially dense on the youngest branch tips and foliage; old stems gray, with striate bark Leaves: alternate, exstipulate, sessile, linear to linear-lanceolate, the margins entire; borne in long and short shoots, (0.5-)1.0-12(-27) mm long, 0.5-2 mm wide, variably strigose, sometimes bearing glandular, capitate trichomes INFLORESCENCE: uniflorous in leaf axils, terminal racemes or open panicles Flowers: solitary in the leaf axils of short shoots, often clustered; flowering stalks 5-12(-20) mm long; bractlets linear, 5- 7(-12) mm long, medial on the flowering stalk; sepals (4)5, bright pink, rose, or magenta, strigose and sometimes also with glandular capitate trichomes on the outer surfaces; lowermost sepal 8-10 mm long, 4-6 mm wide, gibbous; elaiophores oblanceolate, 2-3 mm long, pink to light purple, bearing vertical, saccate blisters on the surface that tend to be most prominent on, or restricted to, the upper portion of the outer face; petaloid petals 3, clawed, 4-6 mm long, connate basally for 1-3 mm, the distinct portions of the lateral petals expanded into acute, minutely serrate triangular blades 2.3-4 mm long and 1.5-3 mm wide, the distinct portion of the central petal smaller, oblanceolate, green basally, pink or pink with purple edges distally; stamens 4, ca. 4 mm long, inserted near the distal end of the connate portion of the petaloid petals, distinct from the point of insertion,strongly curved upward, mainly white, pink distally; ovary ca. 3 mm long; style curved upward, pink Fruit: cordate in outline, laterally compressed, ca. 6 mm wide excluding the spines, densely strigose to glabrous, the spines 2-5 mm long, most often with a few to several retrorse barbs near but not at the tip; SEEDS globose, gray-brown, smooth, lacking endosperm Misc: Deserts to oak savanna and chaparral; below 1650 m (5400 ft.); (Jan-) Mar.-Oct.(-Nov.) REFERENCES: Simpson, Beryl B. Andrew Salywon. 1999. Krameriaceae. Ariz. – Nev. Acad. Sci. 32(1).