page_title: Cnidoscolus texanus
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Cnidoscolus texanus / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: Texas bullnettle (Cindoscolus texanus), photographed at Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge, Colorado County, Texas, USA, TX; 15 May 2013
context_page_description: Cnidoscolus texanus, commonly known as Texas bullnettle, tread-softly, mala mujer, and finger rot, is a perennial herb covered with stinging hairs. The main stem, branches, leaves, and seed pods are all covered with hispid or glass-like bristly hairs that release an allergenic toxin upon contact. Contact with the plant results in intense pain: stinging, burning, and itching lasting for hours. It is native to the U.S. states of Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma and also native to the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, Mexico. It is an herbaceous flowering plant that grows between 30–80 cm tall and as much as 1 m across. Texas bullnettle has showy, fragrant white flowers that can bloom throughout the year in southern regions of its distribution, predominantly March to November in northern regions. It is a drought-tolerant plant, therefore making it a superb choice for xeriscaping. This plant is attractive to birds, bees, butterflies, and other insects. The seeds are known to be consumed by Rio Grande wild turkeys and mourning doves.
  The seeds, which are edible when ripe, are also consumed by humans.
context_section_description: It is a perennial plant with erect or sprawling branching stems growing from thick root stock , up to 40 inches long and 8 inches thick. It has milky latex and stiff prickly glandular-based, stinging hairs. The stems and leaves are green. The leaves are three to six inches, simple, and are alternately arranged on the stem, and each leaf is deeply cut with 3 to 5 lobes. The lobes are typically roughly and irregularly toothed or lobed again. The flowers are in a few flowered terminal cymose inflorescences about one inch across. Flowers have five sepals and lack petals, the sepals are lobed, white, fragrant, and covered with hispid hairs. Each flower has 10 connate stamens. The male and female flowers separate but within the same cluster. The fruits are in prickly 3-seeded capsules.
  It was first described by Johannes Müller Argoviensis in 1865 as Jatropha texana. It was then moved to the genus Cnidoscolus in 1903 by John Kunkel Small.
caption: Texas bullnettle (Cnidoscolus texanus), Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge, Colorado Co., TX, USA; 15 May 2013
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