Herbs , annual or short-lived perennial, 1-4 dm. Stems 10-20-branched, decumbent to ascending. Leaf blades orbiculate to deltate, 0.7-2.7 × 0.5-1.7 cm, base truncate, rounded, or very broadly cuneate, apex smoothly attenuate or occasionally slightly acuminate. Flowers: involucral bracts 1.5-2 mm; tepals ca. 1.5 mm, nearly equal to bracts. Achenes light brown, symmetric, 0.5-0.8 × 0.3-0.6 mm or less, apex obtuse, mucro ±apical; stipe centered, short-cylindric, abruptly flared basally.

Flowering winter-spring. Weedy places, around masonry, woodland and shrub borders, shell mounds, sandy beaches, roadsides; Atlantic and Gulf coastal plains; 0-30 m; Del., Fla., Ga., La., Miss., N.C., S.C., Tex.; Mexico; West Indies; South America.

Parietaria praetermissa has been misidentified as P . floridana by some authors.

Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Herbaceous annuals to short-lived perennials, to 40 cm tall, stems translucent, fragile, branching from the base, decumbent to ascending, herbage, sparsely to densely pubescent with hooked and straight, nonstinging hairs on all parts of the plant.

Leaves: Alternate, orbicular to deltate, 7-27 mm long and 5-17 mm wide, bases truncate, rounded, or very broadly cuneate, tips smoothly attenuate or occasionally slightly acuminate, blades without stipules.

Flowers: Inconspicuous and small, greenish, involucral bracts linear to lanceolate, without hooked hairs, 1.5-2 mm long, tepals 4, to 1.5 mm long, nearly equal to the bracts, flowers bisexual, staminate, or pistillate, proximal flowers usually bisexual and staminate, distal flowers pistillate, stamens 4, styles persistent or not; stigmas tufted, deciduous, inflorescences forming in leaf axils.

Fruits: Achenes light brown, symmetric, 0.5-0.8 mm long and 0.3-0.6 mm wide or less, apices obtuse, borne on a centered, short-cylindric stipe, abruptly flaring basally.

Ecology: Found in weedy places, around masonry, woodland and shrub borders, shell mounds, sandy beaches, roadsides; Atlantic and Gulf coastal plains, from 0-100 ft (0-30 m); flowering winter-spring.

Distribution: Delaware, Florida, Georgia Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas; Mexico; West Indies; South America.

Notes: A good key for this species are the ovate to orbiculate leaves, which are lanceolate to ovate on the other two species of Parietaria in Arizona, P. pensylvanica and P. floridana. This species is not currently recognized by most sources as occurring in Arizona. Collections of this species are essential.

Ethnobotany: Unknown.

Synonyms: Parietaria nummularia, uncertainty about this taxa

Editor: LCrumbacher2012

Etymology: Parietaria derives from the Latin parietarius, "of walls," which descends from Greek paries, "a wall," where the plant likes to grow, as Pliny knew when he described it, and floridana means of or from Florida.

Reports of P. floridana Nutt., another southern sp., with the lvs 3-nerved from the truncate or rounded base, may be based on small plants of P. pensylvanica.

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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