Viscid Four-o'clock (Mirabilis viscosa)

   
 

Overview and foliage, Jalisco, Mexico. Photographs by Wynn Anderson.

 

View of a sticky-glandular stem and of a flower,Jalisco, Mexico. Photographs by Wynn Anderson.

Fruit of Viscid Four-o'clock, Jalisco, Mexico. Photograph by Wynn Anderson.

• Common English Names: Viscid Four-o'clock, Sticky umbrellawort
• Common Spanish Names: Maravillita
• Scientific Name: Mirabilis viscosa (mere-RAB-ill-iss viss-COH-suh
• Family: Nyctaginaceae (Four-o'clock Family)
• Geographic Range: Rocky hillsides, flats, roadside embankments, and disturbed soils, widespread from Tamaulipas south along the east coast, Chihuahua, Durango, and Zacatecas in the southern Chihuahuan Desert region, across the central Mexican highlands, and south to Peru in South America.
• Description: Robust, herbaceous annual or short lived perennial, viscid pubescent throughout or sometimes leaf blades glabrate. Stout stems erect to 4' or more tall. Leaves are heart-shaped (ovate-deltate, cordate to cordate-ovate), thin, bright yellowish green to green. Involucres are usually 1-flowered in well branched clusters of short-tubed funnel flowers pink to reddish-violet, occasionally white. Involucres greatly expanding in seed, rotate or umbrella-like, slightly translucent tan, in color and notably persistent on the plant
• Note: A somewhat weedy plant, usually strongly sticky-glandular and unpleasant to the touch.

Last Update: 5 Oct 2013