Biorepository Data Portal

Benson and Darrow 1981, Kearney and Peebles 1969, Martin and Hutchins 1980, Heil et al 2013, Carter 2012

Common Name: Apache plume Duration: Perennial Nativity: Native Lifeform: Shrub General: Shrubs to 2 m tall, sometimes evergreen and sometimes deciduous, bark exfoliating in flakes, stems much-branched, the slender branchlets with gray to white wool. Leaves: Usually winter-deciduous, 6-8 mm long, in fascicles; pinnately divided into 3-7 narrowly oblong lobes; dark green above, rusty to white woolly beneath, with revolute margins. Flowers: White and showy, usually unisexual, in loose clusters of 1-3 at the end of elongate, nearly leafless stalks; flowers 3 cm in diameter; 5 calyx lobes alternating with narrower bractlets; 5 white petals, rounded to obovate and rotate; numerous yellow stamens and many carpels; female flowers have sterile anthers and male flowers have sterile ovaries; hypanthium persists after the dispersal of fruits; receptacle flat. Fruits: Many obovoid-fusiform achenes, each with a style that is modified into a pink or purplish feathery, twisted, and villous plume, to 3 cm long. Ecology: Found on rocky slopes, gravelly flats, and alluvial soils from 3,500-7,500 ft (1067-2286 m); flowers April-October. Distribution: c CA, s NV, s UT, AZ, CO, NM, s TX, s OK; south to n MEX. Notes: Distinguished by its spreading-shrubby habit, often forming thickets in flats and washes; the lobed leaves which are much thinner and less resinous and fragrant than Purshia; and the showy white flowers followed by many fruits with long, pink-purple plumose tails. Ethnobotany: Used ceremonially, as a shampoo, in basketry, as rough brooms, in cradleboard and bed construction, and in arrows. Etymology: Fallugia is named for the Italian botanist Abbot Virgilio Fallugi (1627-1707), while paradoxa means unusual or paradoxical. Synonyms: None Editor: SBuckley 2010, FSCoburn 2015, AHazelton 2015