Flora of North America species comparison

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Portulaca amilis

Paraguayan purslane
Habit Plants annual; roots fibrous.
Stems

prostrate to suberect;

trichomes dense at nodes and in inflorescence;

branches 5–25 cm.
Leaf

blades oblanceolate, spatulate, or obovate, flattened, 5–30 × 2–12 mm, apex acute to submucronate; involucrelike leaves 6–8(–9).
Flowers

5–20 mm diam.;

petals pink to purple, obovate, 7–10 × 4–8 mm;

stamens 15–45;

stigmas 7–10.
Capsules

ovoid, 2–5.5 mm diam.
Seeds

black, orbiculate, flattened, 0.4–0.6 mm diam., shiny;

surface cells obscurely stellate, tuberculate to ± smooth.
2n

= 18.

Portulaca amilis
Phenology Flowering late spring–early fall.
Habitat Fields, granitic outcrops, disturbed habitats
Elevation 0-200 m (0-700 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
AL; FL; GA; NC; SC; South America [Introduced in North America]
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Prior to 1981, Portulaca amilis had been included conceptually within P. pilosa (A. E. Radford et al. 1968). However, W. S. Judd and R. P. Wunderlin (1981) correctly identified P. amilis as an introduction from South America. It tends to occur in the sandy soils at the junction of the coastal plain and the piedmont provinces, but it is also spreading north and south through the coastal plain, where it has exhibited a weedy nature, as shown by collection data from Virginia to Florida. Portulaca amilis has only pink to purple petals in the United States; C. D. Legrand (1962) reported a yellow form of the species in South America. A. F. Clewell (1985) incorrectly gave the petal color of P. amilis as yellow. J. F. Matthews and P. A. Levins (1985) traced the spread of the species in the southeast and theorized as to the means of introduction.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 4, p. 497.
Parent taxa Portulacaceae > Portulaca
Sibling taxa
P. biloba, P. grandiflora, P. halimoides, P. oleracea, P. pilosa, P. rubricaulis, P. smallii, P. suffrutescens, P. umbraticola
Name authority Spegazzini: Anales Soc. Ci. Argent. 92: 104, plate 6. (1921)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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