Plant Name
Scientific Name: Phacelia arizonica
Synonym: Phacelia popei var. arizonica
Common Names: Arizona Phacelia, Arizona Scorpionweed, Arizona Scorpion-weed
Plant Characteristics
Duration: Annual, Perennial
Growth Habit: Herb/Forb
Arizona Native Status: Native
Habitat: Desert, Upland. This wildflower grows in dry, sunny, open areas in the deserts and grasslands.
Flower Color: Bluish white, Pale blue to pale mauve
Flowering Season: Spring
Height: Up to 16 inches (40 cm) tall, but usually less
Description: The flowers are crowded atop coiled, 1-sided cymes. The individual flowers are broadly bell-shaped and have a white throat, 5 rounded lobes with distinctive magenta-colored central stripes, an exserted style and stamens, and 5 green, glandular-hairy sepals. The flowers are followed by small, rounded seed capsules. The leaves are green, alternate, deeply pinnately lobed to bipinnate, and oblong to narrowly egg-shaped. The stem leaves are much smaller than the larger basal leaves. The stems are green to reddish brown in color, glandular-hairy, and prostrate to ascending.
Classification
Kingdom: Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom: Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision: Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division: Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class: Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass: Asteridae
Order: Solanales
Family: Hydrophyllaceae – Waterleaf family
Genus: Phacelia Juss. – phacelia
Species: Phacelia arizonica A. Gray – Arizona phacelia
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