Taxon

Mirabilis multiflora

 
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Mirabilis multiflora - four o'clock
Image: Cristina Salvador
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Common name: four o'clock
Family: Nyctaginaceae (Four o'clock)
Distribution: Southwestern United States, Mexico
Habitat: Plains, hillsides, mesas, woodlands
Hardiness: USDA Zone 5 (-20 to -10 °F)
Life form: Herbaceous perennial
Occurrence in New Mexico: New Mexico native plant
Growing Conditions: The native range of four o’clocks extends from southwestern Colorado, Utah, and Nevada, south through California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, to northern Mexico. It grows at elevations from 500-8,500 feet, from the creosote flats of the low desert, in scrub and mid-elevation piñon-juniper woodlands, to ponderosa forests. This species grows throughout New Mexico woodlands; var. multiflora grows throughout the state and var. glandulosa grows in the Four Corners region. It grows in both partial shade and sun, often on open, sandy hillsides or dry, rocky soils of mesas. It grows from a large tuberous root and is very drought tolerant. Four o’clocks grow rapidly and are long-lived. Varieties of this poorly differentiated species intergrade where habitats overlap. Plants can be propagated by stratified or scarified seeds, by softwood cuttings, or by root division. Four o’clocks are useful for erosion control and as a ground cover. Plants can be cut back to ground level in autumn.
Description: Four-o-clocks grow as sprawling or mounded plants, 2 or more feet tall and 3 or more feet wide, with thick, large (up to 4 inches long and 3 inches wide), rounded or heart-shaped leaves. In the winter, dried stems and leaves are white. Showy, funnel-shaped, 5-lobed pink flowers made up of fused sepals (they have no petals) open in late afternoon and close in the morning. Each flower is about 2 inches across, emerging as a single flower from leaf axils or as 6 flowers in a whorl of bracts surrounding a flower cluster (involucre) at the ends of branches. The lobes of the flower bracts are partially fused and are often covered with sand due to glandular, sticky hairs. In some areas, its tuberous root can grow up to a circumference of a foot or more.
Links: SFBG Plant of the Month • Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN-Taxonomy) • SEINet • Wildflower Center - Native Plant Database

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