Flora of New Zealand Series

petunia

Annual or short-lived spreading perennial, clammy or viscid with glandular hairs, especially on young shoots, peduncles and pedicels. Petiole short. Lamina 2-6 × 1.5-6 cm, orbicular to lanceolate; base attenuate; apex rounded to acute. Calyx 10-20 × 2-8 mm, narrow-oblong to spathulate, densely glandular-hairy, ± obtuse. Corolla c. 3.5-7 cm long; tube densely glandular-hairy outside; limb ± patent, 4-6 cm diam., white, pink, crimson, purple or violet. Capsule 6-10 mm long, ovoid. Seed 0.5-0.7 mm diam., mostly globose to oblong, strongly reticulate.

N.: Auckland; S.: Nelson, Marlborough, Christchurch, Alexandra.

Cultivated hybrid 1968

Waste places, old building sites, rubbish heaps, roadsides, and other open sites in the vicinity of gardens and parks, usually a casual.

FL Jan-Dec.

A fl. of P. × hybrida is illustrated in Fig. 115. Petunias are abundantly cultivated. The hybrid group concerned is very variable with many cultivated strains. Some of these have frilled and semi-double corollas to c. 8 cm diam. but such forms have not been reported wild. The parents are said to be P. axillaris Britton, Sterns et Pogg. and P. integrifolia (Hook.) Schinz et Thell. from eastern S. America. (Wijsman, H. S. W., Acta Bot. Neerl. 31: 477-490 (1982)) and wild plants in N.Z. were first recorded as the former.