Erect Spiderling (Boerhavia erecta)
Flowers, near Batopilas, Chihuahua, Mexico. Photograph by Wynn Anderson.
Leaves and developing fruit, near Batopilas, Chihuahua, Mexico. Photographs by Wynn Anderson.
- Common English Names: Erect Spiderling
- Common Spanish Names: Mochis
- Scientific Name: Boerhavia erecta (beer-HAH-vee-uh ee-WRECK-tuh)
- Family: Nyctaginaceae (Four-o'clock Family)
- Geographic Range: Preferring disturbed soils and waste places, washes,
arroyos, and river banks from southeastern US west to Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, south in
Sonora and scattered through the Chihuahuan Desert region of Mexico to Central and South
America.
- Description: Somewhat weedy annual herb, usually erect, profusely branching
from lower half, usually glabrous but upper stems with sticky internodal bands; leaves mostly
basal, broadly rhombic or triangular-ovate to oval or lanceolate, glabrous, margins entire to
sinuate; flowers whitish but usually tinged pink or purplish between lobes and in throat, in
terminal irregular umbels or sub-racemose clusters. The short stems (pedicels) of individual
flowers of a terminal cluster do not attach at a same single point on the supporting stem below as
they do for normal clusters thus form irregular umbels or sub-racemes.
- Notes: The purpose of the viscid, sticky internodal rings or bands on the
middle to upper stems of the inflorescences of many Boerhavia species as well as other members of
the Four o'clock family is unknown. Some suggest they serve a barrier to protect flowers from
ants and crawling insect herbivores. Others suggest they may serve a semi-carnivorous purpose,
supplying extra nutriments absorbed from trapped insects and windblown organic matter at the time
of flowering.
Last Update: 5 Oct 2013
