Lavender-leaf Sundrops
Calylophus lavandulifolius, Evening Primrose Family ( Onagraceae ), Lavender-leaf Sundrops. Also called: Lavender-leaf primrose, Lavenderleaf sundrops, Calylophus hartwegii var. lavandulifolius, Galpinsia lavandulifolia, Oenothera lavandulifolia, Calylophus lavandulifolia.
Lavender-leaf Sundrops is a low, mound-forming perennial groundcover. It is about 8 inches tall by 10 inches wide. Its stems and leaves are green - grayish with a dense velvety pubescence. When it blooms its bright yellow flowers are 1 to 2 inches wide, with four, fringed petals.
Height: Up To 8" tall, and up to about 10 inches in diameter.
Flowers: Solitary flowers, in upper leaf axils. 1 to 2 inches wide; floral tubes 1 to 2.5 inches long; sepals 4, often with purple marginal stripes; petals 4, 1/2 to 1 inch long, about as wide, yellow, fading pink or purplish, crinkled; stamens 8; stigma disc-shaped, 4-lobed.
Blooming Time: April - September.
Fruits: Capsules, narrow, cylindric, 1/2 to 1 inch long, 4-angled, gray-hairy; seeds many and small.
Leaves: Alternate, simple, sessile, numerous, crowded, linear to narrowly lanceolate, 1/4 to 2 inches long and less than 1/4 inch wide, somewhat ascending, appressed green-gray-hairy; margins entire; tips pointed to rounded.
With stems that are decumbent to ascending, few to many, usually branched, densely appressed gray-hairy.
Found: Southwestern USA.
Elevation: 4,300 - 7,600 Feet.
Habitat: Dry rocky, hillsides and ledges, stream valleys, roadsides, disturbed ground, ponderosa forest clearings, and open wooded hillsides .
Miscellaneous: Flowering Photos Taken September 19, 2006. Near Holbrook, Arizona. A good xeriscape plant.
