Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Low, spreading annual herb; stems prostrate, diffusely branched, 2-40 cm long; herbage glandular-viscid.

Leaves: Alternate to sub-opposite along the stems; sessile or on short petioles; blades oblong-linear to oblong-spatulate, 4-12 mm long and 1-5 mm wide, fleshy, 1 nerved, with entire margins.

Flowers: Small, purple, and solitary in leaf axils, on short slender pedicels; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes narrow, 2-3 mm long in flower and 5-8 mm long in fruit; corolla funnel-shaped, 5-7 mm long, purple with a whitish tube.

Fruits: Capsule broadly ovoid, 3-4 mm long, yellowish or whitish, glabrous; containing tiny light brown seeds, less than 1 mm long.

Ecology: Found on sandy flats, arroyos, sand bars and stream banks, below 5,000 ft (1524 m); flowers April-September, or throughout the year at lower elevations.

Distribution: s CA to AZ, TX, and FL

Notes: This humble, ground-hugging annual is most often found on sandbars along desert streams. The leaves and stems are glandular and slightly fleshy, and the flowers are small, funnel-shaped and purple, and somewhat hidden in the axils of the leaves. It is sometimes treated in the genus Petunia, and is indeed closely related to those showy garden flowers.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Calibrachoa is named for Mexican botanist Antonio de la Cal y Bracho (1766-1833); parviflora means small-flowered.

Synonyms: Petunia parviflora

Editor: SBuckley 2010, AHazelton 2017

Prostrate, diffusely branched annual; lvs fleshy, spatulate or oblanceolate, 1-2 cm נ1-4 mm; cor blue, 6-8 mm, scarcely surpassing the oblanceolate foliaceous sep; 2n=18. Mainly subtropical in both N. and S. Amer., and occasionally n. into our range as a waif.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.