Bastard Toadflax.

Comandra umbellata ssp pallida (Commandra pallida).

Santalaceae. Sandalwood Family.

SEINet link to this flower. 5-20-15 Aztec, lower lane, median.

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Credit: Plants of Arizona, Anne Orth Epple updated by John F Wiens. Photos by Lewis E. Epple. A Falcon Guide. 2nd ed 2012.

It was hard to identify this flower because I failed to notice that it has no petals.

what we think of as the sepals are missing:

But that’s because those seeming petals are actually the sepals and there are no petals. Failure to look for this not uncommon flower condition kept me from finding the right family in Elpel.

(Thomas J. Elpel, Botany in a Day, the Patterns Method of Plant Identification.)

Elpel does have a category “0 petals,” and I have missed this before.

The logic of calling the “petals” sepals comes from the far more common flower set-up where the petals grow up inside a ring of usually clasping sepals.

ALSO NOTE: a good many of the flowers presented only 4 sepal-petals.