Eremocarya Genus

Eremocarya is a small genus of flowering plants in the family Boraginaceae (order Boraginales, subtribe Amsinckiinae), comprising two accepted species: Eremocarya lepida and Eremocarya micrantha. The genus was first described by Edward Lee Greene in Pittonia, volume 1, page 58 (1887). For much of the 20th century it was treated as a subgenus or synonym of Cryptantha, but a 2012 molecular phylogenetic study of the Cryptantha group resurrected Eremocarya as a distinct genus, alongside the related genera Greeneocharis, Johnstonella, and Oreocarya.

Plants in this genus are profusely branching annual herbs with slender, ascending, nearly leafless stems; the leaves are arranged in a basal rosette, and the roots and lower stems are often stained red or purple. Flowering occurs from March to June, producing dense, spike-like (spiciform) racemes with evenly spaced, leafy bracts beneath each flower. The calyx is small and divided into five sections from the base, and the corolla is small and white. Each flower produces four ovules and, after flowering, four nutlets of similar size and shape; the gynobase (the elevated base bearing the gynoecium) is thin and columnar.

Eremocarya is native to the western United States — including Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, and Utah — and extends into northwestern Mexico, where it grows in dry sandy places at low elevation as well as on montane slopes and valley sides at higher elevation.