Mirabilis oxybaphoides (A.Gray) A.Gray

A much-branched, weak-stemmed plant of moist microhabitats. The stems vary from strongly sticky & viscid to smooth and eglandular.

Flowers near Dripping Springs on the west side of the Organ Mountains, Doña Ana County, New Mexico, 4 Oct 2009.



Side view of an involucrate cluster of flowers, near Dripping Springs, 4 Oct 2009. You can see one open flower clearly, a second, past flowering, emerges from the involucre below it.



Same cluster of flowers with the involucre removed, so that all three flowers and the lower, green part of the corolla is visible; this lower green part of the corolla becomes the outer part of the fruit.



Immature fruits near Dripping Springs, 4 Oct 2009.



Immature fruits, one intact and the second cut in half, near Dripping Springs, 4 Oct 2009. Here you can see clearly that although the green lower part of the corolla becomes the outer part of the fruit, it is not adnate to the gynoecium. Hence, although the flowers look epigynous, they are in fact hypogynous.



A flowering stem near Dripping Springs, 4 Oct 2009.



A flower at Cougar Mountain, 9/10/06.



Flowering stems at Cougar Mountain, 9/10/06.



Closer view of inflorescences, 9/10/06.

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