Gaura parviflora

Gaura parviflora
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Plantae
Clade:Angiosperms
Clade:Eudicots
Clade:Rosids
Order:Myrtales
Family:Onagraceae
Genus:Gaura
Species: G. parviflora
Binomial name
Gaura parviflora

Gaura parviflora (syn. G. mollis E.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 1830 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 Edwin James in 1823. 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

  1. ↑ "Gaura parviflora". Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN). Agricultural Research Service (ARS), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  2. ↑ Jepson Flora: Gaura parviflora
  3. ↑ Southwest Environmental Information Network: Gaura mollis
  4. ↑ Wildflowers of Tucson: Gaura mollis Archived 2006-11-28 at the Wayback Machine.
  5. ↑ Wagner, W. L., & Hoch, P. (2000). Proposal to Reject the Name Gaura mollis (Onagraceae). Taxon 49 (1): 101-102.
  6. ↑ Brummitt, R. K. (2001). Report of the Committee for Spermatophyta: 52. Taxon 50 (4): 1179-1182.
  7. 1 2 USDA Plant Profile: Gaura mollis
  8. ↑ 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)
  9. ↑ Flora of China: Gaura parviflora
  10. ↑ PlantNet (Australia): Gaura parviflora


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