Marvel Of Peru

A garden annual with pretty red flowers. Mutants with large yellow or white flowers are known (Y. Nasir 6238, RAW). The faintly fragrant flowers open in the late afternoon. The leaves and roots are said to be medicinal.

This species is used medicinally and as an ornamental.

Herbs up to 1.5 m tall. Roots tuberous. Stem dichotomous, glabrous to minutely pubescent, often swollen at the nodes, reddish, glaucescent and flaccid. Leaves ovate, 5-12 X 2-6 cm, acuminate, puberulous, base slightly oblique. Involucral bracts ovate, united at the base, c. 9 mm long, sepaloid, puberulous and nervose. Flowers subsessile, in clusters of 4-5; pedicel c. 2 mm long. Perianth tube 2.5-3(-3.5) cm long, puberulous outside, limb plicately 5-lobed; lobes emarginate. Stamens 5, exserted; filaments c. 4 cm long, reddish, lower half adnate to the tube, basally connate and surrounding the ovary. Ovary 1.5 mm long, ovoid; ovule solitary, basal, surrounded by a few linear scales. Style reddish; stigma capitate. Anthocarp 9 mm long, ovoid, 5-ribbed, black, tuberculate. Nut subglobose, c. 7 mm long.

Herbs annual, to 1 m tall. Roots tuberous, black or black-brown. Stems erect, much branched, cylindric, glabrous or slightly pubescent, inflated on nodes. Petiole 1-4 cm; leaf blade ovate or ovate-triangular, 3-15 × 2-9 cm, base truncate or cordate, margin entire, apex acuminate. Flowers usually several clustered at apex of branches, fragrant; pedicel 1-2 mm. Invo- lucre campanulate, ca. 1 cm, 5-lobed, lobes triangular-ovate, acuminate, glabrous, persistent. Perianth purple, red, yellow, white, or variegated; tube 2-6 cm; limb 2.5-3 cm in diam., opening in late afternoon, closing next morning. Stamens 5; filaments slender, exserted; anther globose. Fruit black, globose, 5-8 mm in diam., coriaceous, ribbed and plicate. Endosperm white mealy. Fl. Jun-Oct, fr. Aug-Nov.

Native of S. America; widely cultivated in many tropical areas.

Distribution: A native of S. America; widely cultivated and found as an escape in many tropical areas.

460-1800 m

Fl. Per.: Sept.-Oct.

Originally introduced as an ornamental, now a ruderal weed in some areas of China [native to tropical America; now pantropical].

Nyctago jalapa (Linnaeus) Candolle.