Habit: Annual, glabrous.
Stem: decumbent to erect, (10)20--40 cm.
Leaf: cauline, often deciduous before flower, 0.5--2(4) mm wide, lanceolate to awl-like (uppermost wider or not), sessile, generally entire.
Inflorescence: spike; terminal flowers often aborted, overtopped by fertile; pedicels 0.
Flower: bilateral, generally inverted at full bloom by twisted ovary; corolla generally >> calyx, blue to pink or white, generally with a symmetric white or yellow spot on lower lip, tube entire, limb strongly 2-lipped, upper lip lobes 2, lower lip generally with 2 low ridges, these often with 2 knob-like projections near throat, lobes 3, > upper, generally obovate, obtuse-mucronate; stamens fused (filaments, anthers in tubes), generally 2 smallest anthers each with terminal tuft of bristles, 1 bristle triangular or horn-like, generally 0.2--0.5 mm, others linear, shorter; ovary inferior, long, narrow, +- pedicel-like, chambers 1--2, placentas parietal or axile.
Fruit: dehiscent on sides by 3--5 sometimes translucent slits, tardily so or not.
Species In Genus: 15 species: western North America, Chile.
Etymology: (A.J. Downing, American horticulturist, 1815--1852)
Note: Flower part positions ("upper" is adaxial; "lower" is abaxial) given at full bloom. Corolla measurements are from base of tube to tip of longest lobe, color including albino for +- all species. Based on geography, interfertility, cytology, and sequences of nuclear as well as chloroplast DNA,
Downingia yina Applegate (as recognized in TJM (1993)) split here into 3 morphologically indistinguishable species whose limits need further study, only 2 of which are documented for California:
Downingia pulcherrima,
Downingia willamettensis.
Unabridged Note: Flower part positions ("upper" is next to stem; "lower" is away from stem) given at full bloom. Corolla measurements are from base of tube to tip of longest lobe, color including albino for +- all species. Based on geography, interfertility, cytology, and sequences of nuclear as well as chloroplast DNA, Downingia yina (as recognized in TJM (1993)) split here into 3 morphologically indistinguishable species whose limits need further study: Downingia yina (as now circumscribed, not in California, although possibly in -- yet not documented for -- northern CaR), Downingia pulcherrima, and Downingia willamettensis. The present treatment comes after Downingia pulcherrima and Downingia willamettensis had been united under Downingia willamettensis, and that taxon in turn had been transferred to Downingia yina, as Downingia yina var. major (leaving the remainder of that sp. under Downingia yina var. yina).Jepson eFlora Author: Lisa M. Schultheis
Reference: Schultheis 2001 Syst Bot 26:603--621
Unabridged Reference: McVaugh 1941 Mem Torrey Bot Club 19:1--57; Weiler 1962 Ph.D. Dissertation, Univ of California, Berkeley; Schultheis 2001 Syst Bot 26:603--621Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)Key to Downingia
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