Glossopetalon spinescens
Glossopetalon spinescens var. aridum Spring Mountains, southern Nevada

Secure  (NatureServe)[1]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Rosids
Order: Crossosomatales
Family: Crossosomataceae
Genus: Glossopetalon
Species:
G. spinescens
Binomial name
Glossopetalon spinescens
Varieties[2]
  • Glossopetalon spinescens var. aridum M.E.Jones
  • Glossopetalon spinescens var. clokeyi (Ensign) M.L.Allen
  • Glossopetalon spinescens var. goodwinii M.L.Allen
  • Glossopetalon spinescens var. meionandrum (Koehne) Trel.
  • Glossopetalon spinescens var. mexicanum (Ensign) H.St.John
  • Glossopetalon spinescens var. microphyllum N.H.Holmgren
  • Glossopetalon spinescens var. planitierum (Ensign) Yatsk.
  • Glossopetalon spinescens var. spinescens
  • Glossopetalon spinescens var. texense (Ensign) M.L.Allen
Synonyms[2]
List
    • Forsellesia arida (M.E.Jones) A.Heller (1900)
    • Forsellesia clokeyi Ensign (1942)
    • Forsellesia meionandra (Koehne) A.Heller (1900)
    • Forsellesia nevadensis (A.Gray) Greene (1893)
    • Forsellesia planitierum Ensign (1942)
    • Forsellesia spinescens var. typica Ensign (1942)
    • Forsellesia spinescens (A.Gray) Greene (1893)
    • Forsellesia stipulifera (H.St.John) Ensign (1942)
    • Forsellesia texensis Ensign (1942)
    • Glossopetalon clokeyi (Ensign) H.St.John (1942)
    • Glossopetalon meionandrum Koehne (1894)
    • Glossopetalon nevadense A.Gray (1876)
    • Glossopetalon planitierum (Ensign) H.St.John (1942)
    • Glossopetalon spinescens var. typicum (Ensign) H.St.John (1942)
    • Glossopetalon stipuliferum H.St.John (1937)
    • Glossopetalon texense (Ensign) H.St.John (1942)

Glossopetalon spinescens, syn. Forsellesia spinescens, is a species of flowering shrub in the family Crossosomataceae known by the common names greasebush, spiny greasebush, Nevada greasewood and spring greasebush.

It is native to Mexico and the western United States, where it grows in mountainous habitats, often on limestone substrates.

Common names

Glossopetalon spinescens known by the common names greasebush,[3] spiny greasebush,[4][5][6][7] Nevada greasewood (in California),[8][9] spring greasebush[9] and spiny greasewood,[citation needed] depending on location/source.

The name 'greasewood' is also a common name for Larrea tridentata in Texas.[10]

The different varieties of this species have also been given separate common names when they were still regarded as distinct species, i.e. plains greasebush for G. planitierum, etc.[11]

Description

Glossopetalon spinescens in the White Mountains, Nevada, 1715m (5620ft) elevation in early May. The flowers are pollinated and beginning to fruit, but not all the petals have been shed. Dehiscent, persistent follicles can be seen from the previous year. The leaves have largely been shed. The tips of the stems are beginning to die off; their sharp, tapered, hardened ends function as spines.

This shrub forms a dense, erect clump of many thin, branching, thorny stems approaching 3 metres (9.8 ft) in maximum height.[5][12] The green oval leaves are less than two centimeters long.[12]

Small white-petalled flowers appear in the leaf axils.[12] The fruit is a single or double follicle a few millimeters wide, and 3 to 5mm long.[12][5] A follicle is a fruit which splits lengthwise when it is ripe to release its seeds. It is longitudinally striated or ribbed, and coloured green when young, turning light brown.[7]

Taxonomy

Glossopetalon spinescens was described by the American botanist Asa Gray in 1853, based on a specimen collected by Charles Wright in 1852 in a mountain ravine near a location called 'Frontera', in either New Mexico or Texas.[3] It is the type species for the genus Glossopetalon.[13]

G. spinescens is conceived at this time as a widespread and morphologically variable species, unlike the other three (as of 2015) recognised species of Glossopetalon, which are all restricted endemics with more narrowly variable morphologies. Six more-or-less geographical, intergrading varieties were recognized as of 2015.[12][5]

Mason mentions in 2015 that the morphological characteristics distinguishing a particular variety are not reliable, and some named varieties seem to occur sympatrically with other varieties, whereas some varieties appear to be found in disjunct populations, thus that it was important a study should be done investigating the genetics of the different populations of the varieties.[5] A 2021 study did just that. It found that G. spinescens was largely split into two main geographic lineages: a northwest one and a southeast one. The taxa G. clokeyi and G. texense were found to belong to either lineage respectively, and could therefore no longer parsimoniously be seen as distinct species. Consequently, both taxa were reduced to new varieties. A ninth additional variety was described from northern Arizona on the basis of its divergent DNA: goodwinii.[14] It remains unclear which varieties exist in the southern half of Mexico.[5]

Distribution

Glossopetalon spinescens occurs across a wide range, from southeastern Washington state in the north,[3] south to isolated disjunct populations in the south of Mexico (Guanajuato, Oaxaca, Tlaxcala and Veracruz).[5]

Besides the Mexican states mentioned above, G. spinescens also occurs in the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, Sonora and Tamaulipas.[7]

In the US it occurs, from north to south and west to east, in the states of Washington, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Wyoming, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. In none of these states is it widespread, but rather localised to a number of counties.[3][4][6] In general, this is a rare plant, found most often in scattered concentrations.[3] In Montana and Wyoming it is especially rare, only occurring in a single county (Beaverhead and Sweetwater, respectively).[3]

Ecology

It occurs in calcareous soils on limestone.[6][7] It occurs at altitudes of approximately 850 to 2200m in Arizona.[7] It grows on hillsides, rocky slopes and crevices and ledges of cliffs in canyons and outcrops in desert scrub, grasslands, chaparral and juniper woodland habitats.[6][7]

It flowers from March to September throughout its range,[6] March or April to May in Arizona.[7]

References

  1. ^ NatureServe (2024). "Glossopetalon spinescens". Arlington, Virginia. Retrieved 6 March 2024.
  2. ^ a b "Glossopetalon spinescens A.Gray". Plants of the World Online. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved 6 March 2024.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Schneider, Al. "Glossopetalon spinescens". Southwest Colorado Wildflowers. Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory of Gothic, Colorado. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
  4. ^ a b "Glossopetalon spinescens A. Gray". PLANTS. United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Mason, Charles T. Jr.; Yatskievych, George (15 January 2015). "Glossopetalon spinescens". Flora of North America north of Mexico. Vol. 9: Magnoliophyta: Picramniaceae. Flora of North America Editorial Committee. ISBN 978-0-19-534029-7.
  6. ^ a b c d e "Glossopetalon spinescens". Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. The University of Texas at Austin. 30 October 2020. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g "Glossopetalon spinescens A. Gray". SEINet Portal Network. Arizona State University. 2017. Retrieved 17 February 2022.
  8. ^ Shevock, James R. (1993). "CROSSOSOMATACEAE". Treatment from the Jepson Manual. Regents of the University of California. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
  9. ^ a b "Glossopetalon spinescens A. Gray". GRIN-Global - U.S. National Plant Germplasm System. United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
  10. ^ Loughmiller, Campbell; Loughmiller, Lynn (1984). Texas Wildflowers. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. p. 241. ISBN 0-292-78060-5.
  11. ^ a b "Glossopetalon spinescens var. planitierum". Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. The University of Texas at Austin. 27 October 2010. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g Mason, C.T. 1992. Crossasomataceae, Crossosoma Family. Journal of the Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science 26:7-9.
  13. ^ a b Ensign, Margaret (March 1942). "A Revision of the Celastraceous Genus Forsellesia (Glossopetalon)". The American Midland Naturalist. 27 (2): 501–511. doi:10.2307/2421016. JSTOR 2421016.
  14. ^ a b c d Allen, Maya L.; Ayers, Tina (25 October 2021). "A Revised Classification of Glossopetalon (Crossosomataceae) Based on Restriction Site-Associated DNA Sequencing". Systematic Botany. 46 (3): 562–572. doi:10.1600/036364421X16312067913417. S2CID 240155253.
  15. ^ "Glossopetalon clokeyi". NatureServe Explorer. NatureServe. Retrieved 2018-09-30.
  16. ^ Holmgren, Noel H. (September 1988). "Glossopetalon (Crossosomataceae) and a New Variety of G. spinescens from the Great Basin, U.S.A.". Brittonia. 40 (3): 269–274. Bibcode:1988Britt..40..269H. doi:10.2307/2807471. JSTOR 2807471. S2CID 42189852.