Winged Four O'clock

Hermidium was once maintained as a genus based on discrete involucral bracts. As discussed by G. E. Pilz (1978), distinct bracts are typical, but involucres with the five outermost bracts united to one-half their length are common.

Herbs, forming hemispheric clumps 6-8 dm diam., glabrous or very sparsely puberulent. Stems 2-4 dm. Leaves spreading; petioles of proximal leaves 0.5-0.7 cm; blades of midstem leaves ovate to widely ovate, 4.5-9 × 3.5-5 cm, base obtuse to rounded, often oblique, apex obtuse, rarely acute. Involucres: peduncle 3-10 mm; involucres erect to pendent, 11-30 mm; bracts 6-9, distinct or to 50% connate, apex acute to obtuse, rarely rounded. Flowers 6-9 per involucre; perianth usually magenta, occasionally creamy white, bell-shaped, 1.5-1.8 cm. Fruits mottled olive green, with 10 slender, tan ribs, ellipsoid, 5.5-7 mm, rugulose, glabrous, secreting thick, heavy mucilage when wetted.

Calif., Colo., Nev., Utah.

Flowering spring-late summer.

Gravelly or sandy soils in arid brushlands or pinyon-juniper woodlands; 1200-2000m.

Hermidium alipes S. Watson, Botany (Fortieth Parallel), 286, plate 32. 1871; H. alipes var. pallidium Ch. Porter

Hermidium alipes S. Wats. Bot. King's Expl. 286. 1871
Plants 2-4 dm. high, the stems arcuate-ascending, sparsely branched, the branches very stout, glaucous, glabrous, or obscurely puberulent above; petioles stout, 2-12 mm. long; leafblades orbicular-ovate, suborbicular, or broadly oval-ovate, 4-7 cm. long, 2-5.5 cm. wide, often as broad as long, rounded to obtuse at the base or rarely subcordate, often short-decurrent, obtuse to broadly rounded and apiculate at the apex, or the uppermost acu,te, green, thick and succulent, with rather prominent lateral nerves, glabrous; flowers in heads of usually 6, these on peduncles 3-10 mm. long, the peduncles at' first minutely puberulent but soon glabrate; bracts oblong to broadly ovate, 1.5—2.5 cm. long, subcordate or rounded at the base, rounded or obtuse at the apex and often apiculate, rarely slightly united at the base, thin, glabrous, often tinged with red; perianth 2 cm. long, the limb about 1.7 cm. broad, glabrous; stamens equaling or slightly shorter than the perianth; fruit 7 mm. long, 3.5-4 mm. diameter, slightly narrowed at both ends, dark-olive.
Type locality: On low foothills from the Big Bend of the Truckee River to Oreana on the Humboldt, Nevada.
Distribution: Western Nevada and adjacent California.

Mirabilis alipes is a species of flowering plant in the four o'clock family known by the common name winged four o'clock. It is native to the southwestern United States from eastern California to western Colorado, where it grows in brush, woodland, and dry mountain slope habitat. It is a perennial herb growing in a clump near 40 centimetres (15+3⁄4 in) tall and up to 80 centimetres (31+1⁄2 in) wide. The leaves are oppositely arranged on the spreading stem branches. Each fleshy leaf has an oval or rounded blade up to 7 to 9 centimetres (2+3⁄4 to 3+1⁄2 in) long and is hairless or sparsely hairy. The flowers occur in leaf axils on the upper branches. Five to nine flowers bloom from a cup-shaped involucre of several partly fused bracts. Each five-lobed flower is about 1.5 centimetres (5⁄8 in) wide and magenta in color; cream-colored flowers are also known.