Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Vine

General: Perennial herbaceous vine, climbing to 2 m high or more and clinging to other vegetation by its twisted petioles and peduncles; stems slender, much-branched, glabrous except for sparse tomentum near the base.

Leaves: Alternate along the stems, with the lower leaves sometimes opposite; on twisting petioles 5-25 mm long; blades triangular, hastate, or sometimes 3-5 lobed, 5-25 mm long and about as wide, thin, and green.

Flowers: Purple and solitary in leaf axils, on thin twisting pedicels 1-2 cm long; sepals 5, narrowly lanceolate, 10-13 mm long, fused at the base; petals fused into a asymmetrically swollen tube (gibbous), 25-30 mm long, which is 2-lipped at the top, with the upper lip 2-lobed and the lower lip 3-lobed; the corolla tube is light purple to whitish, the lips are purple to carmine, and the throat is often yellow with dark lines.

Fruits: Capsule ovoid-globose, 7-8 mm long; splitting open irregularly near the tip to release many brown seeds, 1 mm long.

Ecology: Found on stony slopes, usually among shrubs, often in limestone soils, and in moist soils along creek bottoms, from 1,500-6,000 ft (457-1981 m); flowers April-October.

Distribution: s CA, s NV, s UT, AZ, NM, s TX, MD, FL; south to s MEX, and in S. Amer.

Notes: Triangular leaves and the vining growth form are key vegetatively, but when coupled with the purple to magenta two-lipped snapdragon flowers, this plant is easily identified. Distinguish from the similar M. wislizenii based on the yellow patch on the throat of the flower and the smaller leaves 25-30 mm long (M. wislizenii lacks the yellow patch and has larger leaves 30-50 mm long).

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Maurandya is named for Catalina Pancratia Maurandy, a Spanish botanist of the late 18th century; antirrhiniflora means having flowers like those of Antirrhinum, the genus of common garden-variety snapdragons.

Synonyms: Antirrhinum maurandioides, Asarina antirrhiniflora, Maurandella antirrhiniflora

Editor: SBuckley 2010, FSCoburn 2015, AHazelton 2017