Stansbury Cliffrose            poor-SHE-ah stans-BUR-i-ana

• Broadleaf deciduous or nearly evergreen shrub or small tree, up to 10 ft (3 m) tall and a similar width, much branched with a rounded crown.  Leaves are simple, generally alternate (but typically clustered at nodes), wedge-shaped with 3 or as many as 9 lobes, 6 mm to 25 mm long, thickened, green to gray-green above and dotted with white glands, paler below.  Flowers are white to pale yellow, fragrant, 2.5 cm across, 5 petals, yellow center, occur at ends of small side branches; bloom occurs from spring to early summer or later.  Fruit, 5-10 achenes per flower, each tipped with a long, hairy, and twisted style.
• Hardy to USDA Zone 4    Native to southern Idaho, southwestern Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and southern California and northern Mexico.
• stansburiana:  honors Captain Howard Stansbury (1806-1863) an American topographical engineer and plant explorer who collected the type specimen in the Great Salt Lake Valley in Utah.  John Torrey (1796-1873) described the specimen as Cowania stansburiana  W.L Jepsen classified it as a var. of Cowania mexicana, i.e., Cowania mexicana var. stansburiana.  It has been reclassified as Purshia stansburiana (Torr.) Hendrickson.  The evergreen species were treated separately in the genus Cowania in the past; this genus is still accepted by some botanists.