Trailing Four O'clock (Allionia incarnata)

 

Overview, Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona, and foliage, Chihuahuan Desert Gardens. Photographs by Wynn Anderson.

 

Flower and foliage, Big Bend, photograph by Gertrud D. Konings(left); Flower, Chihuahuan Desert Gardens, photograph by Wynn Anderson.

• Common English Names: Trailing Four O'clock, Pink Windmills, Trailing Umbrella-wort
• Common Spanish Names: Hierba de la Hormiga
• Scientific Name: Allionia incarnata (al-ee-ON-ee-uh in-kar-NAY-tuh)
• Family: Nyctaginaceae (Four O'Clock Family)
• Geographic Range: Widespread on open dry, silty to rocky soils in desert scrub and grasslands from southeastern California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and western Texas; south through Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, and Nuevo León to Puebla and beyond to South America.
• Description: Perennial ground covering herb with long, mostly prostrate, stems and leaves, usually with some degree of hairiness or even viscid and glandular foliage; bright pink flowers with distinctive cleft petals scattered along the trailing stems
• Notes: A. choisyi is a closely related annual species occupying much of the same range as A. incarnata and distinguished by smaller flowers and differences in the fruit.

Last Update: 29 Sep 2013