Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
Southern Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Hairy Wild Petunia
Ruellia humilis Nutt.
- Family: Acanthus (Acanthaceae)
- Flowering: May-October
- Field Marks: This wild petunia, with large, funnel-shaped lavender flowers, is densely hairy
- Habitat: Prairies, glades, open woods, bluff-tops.
- Habit: Perennial herb with fibrous roots.
- Stems: Sprawling or ascending, densely hairy, up to 2 feet long.
- Leaves: Opposite, simple, oblong to ovate, more or less pointed at the tip, tapering or rounded
at the sessile base, without teeth, densely hairy, up to 3 inches long.
- Flowers: Solitary or few in the axils of the leaves, sessile or nearly so, up to 1 1/2 inches across.
- Sepals: 5, green, very narrow, densely hairy, up to 1 inch long.
- Petals: 5, lavender, united below into a very slender tube, the tube about twice as long as the
- Stamens: 4, attached to the petals.
- Pistils: Ovary superior.
- Fruits: Capsules oblongoid, subtended by the sepals, up to 3/4 inch long.
- Notes: This species may be eaten by livestock.
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