Mirabilis laevis |
Mirabilis pudica |
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desert four o'clock, desert wishbone, desert wishbone-bush, wishbone bush |
bashful four o'clock |
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Habit | Herbs, forming upright columnar clumps 3–5 dm diam., glabrous or densely pubescent. | |||||||||
Stems | decumbent to erect, few and clambering through other vegetation to many, and then usually forming densely leafy and compact clumps, 1.5–15 dm, herbaceous, suffrutescent, or woody basally, glabrous, scabrous, puberulent, or villous, often glandular. |
3–6 dm. |
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Leaves | spreading; petiole 0.1–2.2 cm; blade ovate, deltate-ovate, ovate-rhombic, subreniform, 1–4(–5.5) × 0.5–3.5(–5) cm, fleshy to slightly succulent, base cordate, truncate, or broadly obtuse, apex acute, obtuse, or rounded, surfaces glabrous, scabrous, puberulent, or villous, often glandular. |
strongly ascending; petioles of proximal leaves 0.3–0.5 cm; blades of midstem leaves ovate to narrowly ovate, 3.5–6 × 2–3 cm, base acute to rounded, symmetric, apex acute. |
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Inflorescences | widely cymose, or ± thyrsoid, involucres clustered, and nearly sessile at ends of branches, or solitary in axils on peduncles 3–12 mm; involucres 3–7 mm, lobes narrowly to broadly triangular, or triangular-lanceolate, base 30–50% of height. |
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Involucres | peduncle 6–10 mm; involucres pendent, 12–21 mm; bracts 5, 50% connate, apex acute to widely ovate. |
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Flowers | 1(–2) per involucre; perianth white, pink, or shades of purple, 1–1.6 cm. |
6 per involucre; perianth usually creamy white, 1.2–1.5 cm. |
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Fruits | gray, dark brown, or nearly black, often mottled with dark brown or black, with or without 10 pale, diffuse lines, ovoid, obovoid, or nearly spheric, 3–5.5 mm, smooth or moderately rugose. |
dark brown, with 10 slender, tan ribs occasionally evident at base, ellipsoid, 7–8 mm, smooth, glabrous, not secreting mucilage when wetted. |
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2n | = 66. |
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Mirabilis laevis |
Mirabilis pudica |
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Phenology | Flowering mid spring–early summer. | |||||||||
Habitat | Calcareous hills and flats in arid brushlands | |||||||||
Elevation | 1000-1500 m (3300-4900 ft) | |||||||||
Distribution |
AZ; CA; NV; OR; UT; nw Mexico
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NV |
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Discussion | Varieties 4 (3 in the flora). Mirabilis laevis is a complex of poorly differentiated forms that differ to a greater or lesser extent primarily by perianth color, pubescence, and habit, characteristics that show imperfect geographic consistency. In general, white-flowered plants occur in arid areas east of the southern California mountains, and magenta-flowered plants occur west of the mountains; in the arid regions viscid-pubescent plants occur to the south, less viscid plants to the north. Sympatry and intergradation are frequent in the southern Sierra Nevada, southward along the east side of the southern California mountains, and on the northern portion of the peninsula of Baja California. The variety laevis, which is glabrous or glabrate, is restricted to the immediate coast and islands in the vicinity of Bahía Magdalena in Baja California Sur. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 4, p. 47. | FNA vol. 4, p. 44. | ||||||||
Parent taxa | Nyctaginaceae > Mirabilis > sect. Oxybaphoides | Nyctaginaceae > Mirabilis > sect. Quamoclidion | ||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||
Synonyms | Oxybaphus laevis, Hesperonia laevis | M. pudica var. pubescens | ||||||||
Name authority | (Bentham) Curran: Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci., ser. 2, 1: 235. (1888) | Barneby: Leafl. W. Bot. 3: 175. (1942) | ||||||||
Web links |