Stems usually decumbent-ascending, 1.5-13 dm, minutely puberulent, glabrate, or glabrous basally.
Leaf blades green, linear-lanceolate to lanceolate, 3-11 × 0.4-1.4(-1.8) cm, surfaces glabrous or glabrate.
Inflorescences narrowly to widely forked, usually without main axis; fruiting involucres 4-6 mm, crosswalls of peduncle hairs usually dark.
Perianth pink to deep purple-pink. Flowering summer. Open gravelly or sandy areas in brush, pine, or mixed conifer forests; 1400-2800 m; Ariz., Colo., N.Mex., Utah; Mexico (Chihuahua).
Mirabilis linearis var.
decipiens probably represents populations intergradient between var.
linearis and
Mirabilis melanotricha.