Purple mat is a low, ± prostrate desert annual with 1-6" spreading stems that have dense, villous-hirsute herbage and narrow-spatulate to obovate, entire-margined leaves in compact terminal clusters.  The flower has grayish pubescent lance-linear calyx lobes and a tubular to campanulate 5-lobed corolla with showy pinkish-purple flowers.  This beautiful little species is quite frequently found blooming from April to May on dry sandy or gravelly flats from 2000' to 5500' in creosote bush scrub and pinyon-juniper woodland mostly in the east Mojave Desert but also in Joshua Tree National Park.

Click here for Latin name derivations: 1) Nama 2) demissum.
Pronunciation: NAH-ma deh-MIS-sum.
Click here for Botanical Term Meanings.