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Coulter's spiderling

Boerhavia coulteri

Coulter's spiderling
Photo: Steve Matson, CC BY 4.0

Coulter's spiderling is a small desert annual in the four o'clock family, grown mainly as a wild plant rather than in gardens. It needs hot, dry, sunny conditions and very little water.

Family
Nyctaginaceae (Nyctagin family)
Grows as
Annual
Light
Full sun
Water
Water sparingly; it is adapted to rainfall pulses in desert conditions.
Soil
Well-drained sandy or gritty desert soil.
Temperature
18–35 °C; frost-sensitive
How easy
Easy
Native range
S. California to SW. Texas and N. & W. Mexico
Climate
desert or dry shrubland

About

Boerhavia coulteri is a species of flowering plant in the four o'clock family known by the common name Coulter's spiderling. It is native to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, particularly the desert areas. This is an annual herb producing an erect or creeping stem up to about 70 or 80 centimeters in maximum length. They are slightly hairy and have sticky resin glands toward the bases. The leaves are lance-shaped to somewhat triangular, pointed, sometimes wavy or rippled along the edges, and 5 centimeters in maximum length. Most of the leaves grow from the lower half of the plant. The sticky inflorescence is a small cluster of tiny white to pale pink flowers, each under two millimeters long. The fruit is an elliptical body a few millimeters in length with longitudinal ribs. The fruits are borne in small clusters.

Other Boerhavia plants

Scarlet spiderling · Red spiderling · Tah Vine · Boerhavia elegans · Erect spiderling · Slimstalk spiderling · Slender spiderling · Largebract spiderling · Spiderling

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Boerhavia coulteri by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

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