This is an interesting little plant that hitchhiked home with me from my friend Cynthia in the native plant society. It was in a pot whose main feature was a red stopper, but try telling this flower that it’s second fiddle! It’s more than thrice as tall as its potmate (I didn’t separate them when I should have, so they’re sharing a planting circle), with tons and tons of flowers now. Here’s what it looked like on April 15th, a couple of weeks after going into the ground:
The glossy green color and deep veins on the leaves are so intricate and striking that I thought at first that it must be wild coffee (Psychotria nervosa). (The picture shows a drab green, at least on my monitor, but that’s because I was shooting in glaring sun; as you can see the flower is miserably overexposed. The color in the picture below is much truer.) That was before the first characteristically shaped flowerhead appeared, though; after that, there could be no mistaking what it must be.
While the plant itself is distinctive, there is some confusion on the nets about its status, though. Bell and Tayor, in their 1982 guide, Florida Wild Flowers and Roadside Plants, list it as an annual, while several other sources list it as a perennial.
The one specimen we had at our old house didn’t last long, so I wouldn’t have too much trouble believing that it’s “only” an annual. However, it’s more likely that it’s either a short-lived perennial or an annual that lasts for several seasons in south Florida, because according to Roger Hammer, it can grow into a woody shrub 5 ft high! Not many annuals go to that much trouble, although many weeds do get quite tall…
Rufino Osorio, in A Gardener’s Guide to Florida’s Native Plants,opines that it is a “fast-growing, erect or sprawling annual or short-lived perennial, becoming a small shrub in cultivation” and recommends “annual severe pruning to maintain a tidy appearance; complete replacement about every three years.” He does note that it produces self-sown seedlings, but mine never seemed to at the old house; I’ve got my fingers crossed for this one!
The lone flower you see in the picture above (taken April 15) has become a veritable bouquet now, May 2:
If you look very closely at bottom, you can see the leaves of the teeny-tiny, very slow-growing stopper poking out. They’re the ones without the deep ridges and veins on every square millimeter. The color in this image is also much closer to true; the advantage of shooting in shade and using fill flash! From now on, I’ll use my DSLRs for this kind of photography; my little P-and-Ss just don’t get the job done.
References
Bell, C. R. & Taylor B. J. (1982). Florida Wild Flowers and Roadside Plants.Chapel Hill, NC: Laurel Hill.
Hammer, R. (2002). Everglades Wildflowers. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot.
Osorio, R. (2001). A Gardener’s Guide to Florida’s Native Plants. Tallahassee, FL: UP of Florida