White Sand Verbena

Plants perennial. Stems decumbent to ascending, much branched, elongate, glabrous or glandular-pubescent. Leaves: petiole 1-6 cm; blade ovate to lance-elliptic, 1-6 × 0.5-4 cm, margins entire to sinuate and ± undulate, surfaces glabrous or glandular-pubescent. Inflorescences: peduncle longer than subtending petiole; bracts lanceolate to obovate, 5-12 × 1-5 mm, papery, glabrate to glandular-pubescent; flowers 25-60. Perianth: tube pale rose proximally to greenish distally, 15-25 mm, limb white, 7-12 mm diam. Fruits winged, broadly obdeltate or cordate in profile, 6-10 × 4-10 mm, thin, usually coriaceous, rarely indurate, base attenuate, apex prominently beaked; wings (2-)5 (when 2, folded to form single deep groove), without dilations, broad, thin, without cavities.

Idaho, Oreg., Utah, Wash., Wyo.

Flowering spring-fall.

Sandy soils, cold desert scrub, grasslands; 100-2000m.

Abronia mellifera Dougl. Bot. Mag. 56: pi. 2879. 1829
Abronia Menziesii Dougl.; Hook. Fl. Bor. Am. 2: 125, as synonym. 1838. Abronia vespertina Dougl.; Hook. Fl. Bor. Am. 2: 125, as synonym. 1838. Abronia Suksdorfii Coult. & Fisher, Bot. Gaz. 17: 348. 1892. Abronia lanceolata Rydb. Bull. Torrey Club 29: 685. 1902.
Perennial; stems few or numerous, stout or slender, erect or decumbent, 2-6 dm. long, copiously or sparsely branched, whitish, minutely viscid-puberulent or glabrate, the internodes short or elongate; petioles slender, 1-5 cm. long, puberulent or glabrate; leaf-blades mostly ovate-oblong, sometimes suborbicular, rhombic-ovate, oval, or lance-elliptic, 1.5-6 cm. long, 1-4 cm. wide, rounded to acute at the base, rounded to acute at the apex, entire or subsinuate, minutely puberulent or glabrate; peduncles slender, 4-20 cm. long, minutely viscid-puberulent or glabrate; bracts linear-lanceolate to lance-oblong, 5-10 mm. long, 2-3 mm. wide, or rarely wider in age, acute to attenuate, scarious, white, minutely viscid-puberulent or glabrate; flowers numerous, the perianth 22-30 mm. long, obscurely puberulent or glabrous, the tube very slender, greenishwhite, the limb 8-11 mm. broad, white; fruit 7-10 mm. long and of about the same breadth, subcoriaceous or thick-coriaceous, minutely puberulent, usually
stramineous, commonly 5 -winged, the wings thin, narrowed below, truncate above, or sometimes slightly prolonged above the body and rounded; seed elliptic-oblong, 2.5-3 mm. long,
dark-brown.
Type locality: Near the Great [Celilo] Falls of the Columbia River, Oregon or Washington. Distribution: In sand or sandy soil, Idaho and eastern Washington and Oregon.

Abronia mellifera is a species of sand verbena known by the common name white sand verbena.

This is a perennial plant endemic to the Northwestern United States, in Idaho, Wyoming, Oregon, Washington, and Utah.