Semi-desert. Rocks. Spring.
Canyon of the Ancients National Monument, April 5, 2005.

This is an unusual,  uncommon, spiny shrub.  The narrow petals of its white flowers twist and curl and some petals fall considerably before others, giving the plant an unkempt appearance.

Asa Gray named this plant Glossopetalon spinescens in 1853 from a specimen collected by Charles Wright "in a mountain ravine near Frontera, New Mexico [now Texas]" in 1852.  [Intermountain Flora quotation.]  Edward Greene renamed it Forsellesia spinescens in 1893, and Weber accepts the 1900 name Forsellesia meionandra given the plant by A. Heller.

"Forsellesia" is for Jacob H. Forselles, a Swedish mining engineer.  (More biographical information.)

Semi-desert. Rocks. Spring.
Canyon of the Ancients National Monument, April 5, 2005.