Allionia choisyi – Annual Windmills

Allionia choisyi - Annual Windmills

Allionia choisyi - Annual Windmills

Plant Name

Scientific Name: Allionia choisyi

Common Name: Annual Windmills

Plant Characteristics

Duration: Annual, Perennial (in Mexico)

Growth Habit: Herb/Forb

Arizona Native Status: Native

Habitat: Desert, Upland. This wildflower grows in dry, sunny, open areas.

Flower Color: Pale pink to magenta, Pinkish white

Flowering Season: Late spring, Summer, Early fall

Height: Trailing up to 28 inches (0.7 m) long

Description: Each small, ruffled, funnel-shaped flower is actually a cluster of 3 bilaterally symmetric flowers. The flowers are followed by fruit with a shallowly convex stem end and 4 to 8 teeth on each lateral rib. The leaves are green, in pairs of unequal size, progressively smaller and narrower toward the stem tips, egg-shaped, wavy-edged, sticky-haired to almost hairless, and petioled with a petiole that's equal in length or shorter than the blade. The stems are plump, trailing, sticky-haired to almost hairless, and usually reddish in color. The plants with sticky, glandular hairs are often covered with dirt and plant debris.

The similar and much more common Trailing Windmills (Allionia incarnata) has much larger, often more intensely colored flowers and fruit with a deeply convex stem end and 0 to 4 teeth on each lateral rib.

Classification

Kingdom: Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom: Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision: Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division: Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class: Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass: Caryophyllidae
Order: Caryophyllales
Family: Nyctaginaceae – Four o'clock family
Genus: Allionia L. – windmills
Species: Allionia choisyi Standl. – annual windmills

More About This Plant

Arizona County Distribution Map