Flora of New Zealand Series

four o'clock plant

Perennial, with thick, blackish, tuberous roots. Shoots and lvs puberulent when young, later glabrous or nearly so. Stems swollen at nodes, branched. Petioles usually 1-4 cm long. Lamina 3.5-15 × 3-7 cm (largest in lower lvs), ovate or oblong-ovate, entire; undersurface with numerous rod-like cystoliths; base truncate to broadly cordate; apex acute to acuminate. Upper lvs smaller with shorter petioles. Fls in terminal cymes, fragrant. Involucre calyx-like, 9-15 mm long, hairy, strongly lobed, each containing 1 fl. Calyx 4-4.5 × 3.5-4.5 cm across limb, yellow, magenta or streaked or with sectors of either colour in the same fl., salverform, soon withering; tube c. 3 cm long. Stamens and style exserted. Anthocarp c. 8 mm long, ovoid to ellipsoid, hairy, black or almost so.

N.: vicinity of towns and cities; S.: settlements as far S. as Christchurch.

Tropical Andes 1883

Gardens, sometimes on waste ground and other disturbed habitats.

FL Nov-Apr.

In a population of four o'clock plant or marvel of Peru, yellow, magenta or bicoloured fls can occur on a single plant or the plants may be of one colour only. Bicoloured plants have sharply delimited sectors of these colours and are well known examples of sectorial chimaeras. It is called four o'clock plant because the fls open late in the afternoon (Fig. 90) or evening and have usually withered by the middle of the following day.

Fig. 90. Fl. of Mirabilis jalapa. © All rights reserved. [Image: 4X6J]