Kingdom Plantae Family Onagraceae Scientific name Gaura parviflora | Order Myrtales Genus Gaura Rank Species | |
 | ||
Similar Chaetopappa ericoides, Baileya pleniradiata, Chamaesaracha, Gaura biennis, Calycoseris wrightii | ||
Gaura parviflora (syn. G. mollis James; velvetweed, velvety gaura, downy gaura, or smallflower gaura) is a species of Gaura native to the central United States and northern Mexico, from Nebraska and Wyoming south to Durango and Nuevo Leon.
Contents
It is an annual plant growing to 0.2–2 m (rarely 3 m) tall, unbranched, or if branched, only below the flower spikes. The leaves are 2–20 centimetres (0.79–7.87 in) long, lance-shaped, and are covered with soft hair. The flower spikes are 20–30 centimetres (7.9–11.8 in) long, covered with green flower buds, which open at night or before dawn with small flowers 5 millimetres (0.20 in) diameter with four pink petals.
Nomenclature
The species remains widely known as Gaura parviflora, this name being published in 1832 and for a long time considered the correct name for the species. However, an overlooked but validly published name G. mollis had been published earlier by Thomas Potts James in 1825. A proposal was made to conserve the name G. parviflora over G. mollis, and this was accepted by the International Botanical Congress Committee for Spermatophyta, so G. parviflora remains the correct name. Despite this, the rejected name G. mollis appears in some major sources.
Uses
Among the Zuni people, fresh or dried root would be chewed by medicine man before sucking snakebite and poultice applied to wound.
Weed status
It is naturalized and often invasive in other parts of the United States, and in Australia, China, Japan, and South America.
