Phacelia minor

Phacelia minor, with the common names Whitlavia and wild Canterbury bells, is a species of phacelia. It is native to Southern California and Baja California, where it grows in the Colorado Desert and the coastal and inland mountains of the Transverse-Peninsular Ranges, often in chaparral and areas recently burned.

Phacelia minor
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Boraginales
Family: Boraginaceae
Genus: Phacelia
Species:
P. minor
Binomial name
Phacelia minor
Synonyms[1]

Description

Phacelia minor is an annual herb producing a mostly unbranched erect stem 20 to 60 centimeters tall. It is glandular and coated in stiff hairs. The leaves are up to 11 centimeters long with toothed, crinkly, oval or rounded blades borne on long petioles. The showy inflorescence is a one-sided curving or coiling cyme of many bell-shaped flowers, each up to 4 centimeters in length. The large flowers are lavender to deep blue-purple in color with protruding stamens tipped with white anthers.

There are reports that glandular hairs of stems, flowers and leaves of P. minor secrete oil droplets that can cause an unpleasant skin rash (contact dermatitis) in some people.[2]

See also

References
  1. "Phacelia minor (Harv.) Thell". Plants of the World Online. Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 2017. Retrieved 14 October 2020.
  2. Reynolds, Gary; Epstein, William; Terry, Diane; Rodriguez, Eloy (1980). "A potent contact allergen of Phacelia (Hydrophyllaceae)". Contact Dermatitis. 6 (4): 272–274. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0536.1980.tb04929.x. PMID 7398286.

Further reading


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