About Greeneocharis circumscissa (Hook. & Arn.) Rydb.
Greeneocharis circumscissa (Hook. & Arn.) Rydb. is a species of flowering plant in the borage family, commonly called cushion cryptantha. It is native to western North America, ranging from Washington to Baja California to Colorado, and can also be found growing in Argentina. It inhabits sandy or gravelly environments, found from mountain to desert areas, at elevations below 9,500 meters (31,200 feet) above sea level. This species is an annual herb that produces a short, bristly, multi-branched stem that grows tangled into a mat no more than 10 centimeters tall. It grows from a red taproot that dries to a purple color. Its leaves are up to 1.5 centimeters long, shaped from linear to widely lance-shaped, and covered in dense hairs that make the plant bristly to the touch. Its inflorescence is a section of developing fruits, with a dense cluster of up to 5 flowers at its tip. Each flower has a five-lobed white corolla, with yellow appendages at the top of its corolla tube. This plant flowers between April and August. This species was first published in Bull. Torrey Bot. Club volume 36 on page 677 in 1909. Its Latin specific epithet circumscissa comes from the Latin phrase meaning "cut around". This name refers to how the upper half of the plant's fruiting calyx falls away once its nutlets are ripe. There are three known recognized variants of this species: Greeneocharis circumscissa var. circumscissa, Greeneocharis circumscissa var. hispida J.F.Macbr., and Greeneocharis circumscissa var. rosulata (J.T.Howell) Hasenstab & M.G.Simpson.
