Description
Key Characters:
Growth Form:
Stout annual herbs, branching above, glabrous or sparsely pubescent with simple hairs.
Stems:
Roots:
Leaves:
Leaves simple.
Alternate.
Blades ovate to broadly lanceolate, often 6–12 cm long, 3–8 cm wide.
Apex acute to acuminate.
Base oblique.
Surfaces glabrescent, blades membranous.
Margins entire to sinuate–dentate.
Petioles 2–5 cm long.
Stipules absent.
Flowers:
Flowers actinomorphic, solitary in stem forks, peduncles 5–10 mm long.
Flowers bisexual (perfect).
Calyx angularly tubular, 5-lobed, ca. 5 cm long, the lobes triangular, 1–1.5 cm long.
Corolla single, double, or triple, white, purple, or yellowish, up to ca. 15(–20) cm long, the lobes terminated by a pointed tip 1 cm long.
Stamens 5 or more; anthers 10 mm long; filaments inserted in lower 1⁄2 of corolla tube; anthers dithecal, basifixed, opening by slits.
Ovary superior, ca. 6 mm long; style up to 10 cm long; stigma laterally flattened.
Fruit:
Capsules globose to ovate; ca. 5 cm in diameter; inclined; tuberculate or with short conical spines; opening irregularly; persistent calyx base somewhat thickened.
Seeds numerous; yellowish brown; flattened; obovoid; 4 mm long; 3 mm wide; elaiosome large; endosperm present.
Ploidy:
2n = 24; 48
Habitat:
Open; dry; disturbed areas.
Elevation Range:
Low elevation.