Oenothera curtiflora
| Oenothera curtiflora | |
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| Scientific classification | |
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| (unranked): | |
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| Species: | G. parviflora
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| Binomial name | |
| Gaura parviflora | |
Gaura parviflora (syn. G. mollis James; velvetweed, velvety gaura, downy gaura, or smallflower gaura) is a species of Gaura native to the central United States and northern Mexico, from Nebraska and Wyoming south to Durango and Nuevo Leon.[1]
It is an annual plant growing to 0.2–2 m (rarely 3 m) tall, unbranched, or if branched, only below the flower spikes. The leaves are 2–20 centimetres (0.79–7.87 in) long, lance-shaped, and are covered with soft hair. The flower spikes are 20–30 centimetres (7.9–11.8 in) long, covered with green flower buds, which open at night or before dawn with small flowers 5 millimetres (0.20 in) diameter with four pink petals.[2][3][4]
Nomenclature
The species remains widely known as Gaura parviflora, this name being published in 1832 and for a long time considered the correct name for the species. However, an overlooked but validly published name G. mollis had been published earlier by Thomas Potts James in 1825. A proposal was made to conserve the name G. parviflora over G. mollis,[5] and this was accepted by the International Botanical Congress Committee for Spermatophyta, so G. parviflora remains the correct name.[6] Despite this, the rejected name G. mollis appears in some major sources.[7]
Uses
Among the Zuni people, fresh or dried root would be chewed by medicine man before sucking snakebite and poultice applied to wound.[8]
Weed status
It is naturalized and often invasive in other parts of the United States, and in Australia, China, Japan, and South America.[7][9][10]
References
- ^ Germplasm Resources Information Network: Gaura parviflora
- ^ Jepson Flora: Gaura parviflora
- ^ Southwest Environmental Information Network: Gaura mollis [dead link]
- ^ Wildflowers of Tucson: Gaura mollis
- ^ Wagner, W. L., & Hoch, P. (2000). Proposal to Reject the Name Gaura mollis (Onagraceae). Taxon 49 (1): 101-102.
- ^ Brummitt, R. K. (2001). Report of the Committee for Spermatophyta: 52. Taxon 50 (4): 1179-1182.
- ^ a b USDA Plant Profile: Gaura mollis
- ^ Camazine, Scott and Robert A. Bye 1980 A Study Of The Medical Ethnobotany Of The Zuni Indians of New Mexico. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 2:365-388 (p. 377)
- ^ Flora of China: Gaura parviflora
- ^ PlantNet (Australia): Gaura parviflora
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