Natives For Your Neighborhood
Conservation of rare plants, animals, and ecosystems

General Landscape Uses: A delicate annual wildflower.

Ecological Restoration Notes: A frequent component of pineland communities, but a hemiparasite and thus difficult in cultivation. Direct seeding, however, may be a practical dispersal mechanism.

Availability: Grown by enthusiasts.

Description: Medium herbaceous wildflower.

Dimensions: About 1-4 feet in height. Generally taller than broad.

Growth Rate: Fast.

Range: Widespread in the eastern and central United States south to Miami-Dade County; Greater Antilles.

 Map of select IRC data from peninsular Florida.

Habitats: Wet to mesic pinelands.

Soils: Wet to moist, seasonally inundated sandy or calcareous soils, without humus.

Salt Water Tolerance: Low; does not tolerate flooding by salt or brackish water.

Salt Wind Tolerance: Low; salt wind may burn the leaves.

Drought Tolerance: Low; requires moist to wet soils and is intolerant of long periods of drought.

Light Requirements: Full sun.

Flower Color: Pink to purple.

Flower Characteristics: Showy.

Flowering Season: Summer-fall.

Wildlife and Ecology: Larval host plant for common buckeye (Junonia coenia) butterflies.

Horticultural Notes: Can be grown from seed.