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
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