Plants 1-7 dm. Inflorescences , excluding peduncle, 3-7 cm; bracteoles 1/2 to nearly as long as pedicels. Flowers : pedicel straight and ascending in fruit, ca. 3 mm; corolla 6-9.5 mm, spur ca. 2.5 mm; petals purplish pink or white near base, deep reddish purple to maroon apically. Capsules subglobose, sometimes slightly depressed, 1.5-2 mm diam., ± warty or pebbled. 2 n = 32, 48.
Flowering spring. Waste places, cultivated or fallow fields, thin woods, ditches, roadsides; 0-2100 m; introduced, scattered localities; St. Pierre et Miquelon; Alta., B.C., Man., N.B., Nfld., N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Que., Sask; Ala., Calif., Colo., Conn., D.C., Fla., Ga., Idaho, Ill., Ind., Kans., La., Maine, Mass., Mich., Minn., Mo., Mont., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Oreg., Pa., S.C., Tex., Utah, Vt., Va., W.Va., Wyo.; Europe; n Africa.
Some plants in North America have conspicuously warty capsules with persistent styles. Similar plants in Europe were treated by M. Lidén (1986) as Fumaria officinalis subsp. wirtgenii (Koch) P. D. Sell. In all other characters, those plants are not significantly different from other members of the species, and they are not distinguished formally in this treatment.
Weaker, somewhat scandent plants with smaller, perhaps cleistogamous, white flowers and smaller fruits seem to be correlated with shaded situations. They are otherwise indistinguishable from other members of the species.
Plant: annual herb; from taproots, erect or sprawling, diffusely branched
Leaves: 2-3 times compound, coarsely dissected
INFLORESCENCE: racemes
Flowers: 8-12 mm long, inconspicuous; sepals round attached near base, mucronate, whitish, sepals ca. 3 mm long; petals 5-7 mm long; stamens ca. 4 mm long, petals purple; style deciduous
Fruit: FRUITS globose, smooth, indehiscent; SEEDS 1, brown, without aril
Misc: Grasslands, potentially weedy species of disturbed sites; 1100 m (3300 ft)
REFERENCES: Holiay, Susan, and Abril Perez. 2001. Commelinaceae. J. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. Volume 33(1).
Lax but rather robust, diffusely branched, 2-8 dm; racemes dense, many- fld, 2-4 cm; cor 8 mm, the tube red-purple, the summit dark red; fr 2.5 mm. Native of Europe, intr. in waste ground here and there in our range; 2n=32. May-Aug.
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
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