Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains
31. Onagraceae, the Evening Primrose Family
1. Boisduvalia Spach1. Boisduvalia glabella (Nutt.) Walp.
Low annual 1-3 dm tall, glabrous below, stigulose or villous with white hairs above, usually branched from the base, the branches suberect to decumbent, often rooting at the lower nodes. Lowest leaves opposite, glabrous, narrowly connate at the base, otherwise leaves alternate, sessile, lanceolate to elliptic-lanceolate, 8-20(30) mm long, 3-6(9) mm wide, sparsely denticulate, loosely villous or strigulose to glabrate, often ciliate. Flowering terminal portion of stems erect, the flowers solitary and sessile in the axils of leaflike bracts, the flowers and fruits often hidden by the bracts. Floral tube prolonged 0.3-1 mm beyond the ovary, short funnelform; sepals 4, erect, 0.7-1.8 mm long; petals 4, pinkish to rose-purple, 1-3 mm long, deeply bilobed; stamens 8, with 4 long ones inserted at the mouth of the floral tube opposite the sepals and 4 shorter ones inserted below the mouth of the tube opposite the petals; stigma 4-lobed, ovary 4-celled. Capsule elongate, 6-8 mm long, slightly curved, pointed, dehiscent in the upper portion; seeds in 1 row of 6-14 per locule, brownish, 1-1.3 mm long. Jun--Jul. Muddy banks and flats of streams and temporary ponds; rare in the w parts of ND and SD and e MT; (Sask. to B.C., s to SD, MT, NV and CA).
Return to Family -- Onagraceae - The Evening Primrose Family
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