Nevada smokebush

Psorothamnus polydenius is a shrub sometimes exceeding one meter in height. Its highly branching stems taper to twigs coated in soft, rough, or silky hairs and visible glands. The small leaves are each made up of a few pairs of oval or rounded leaflets each a few millimeters long. The inflorescence is a dense raceme or spikelike cluster of several flowers. Each flower has a pinkish purple pealike corolla about half a centimeter long in a glandular calyx of sepals with pointed lobes. The fruit is a small legume pod containing one seed. One variety of this species, Psorothamnus polydenius var. jonesii, is endemic to Utah.