5. Calibrachoa Cervantes in P. de la Llave and J. M. de Lexarza, Nov. Veg. Descr. 2: 3. 1825.
[I]
[For Antonio de la Cal y Bracho, 1764/1766–1833, Spanish-born Mexican botanist and pharmacologist]
Philip D. Jenkins†
Herbs, annual or perennial, viscid-pubescent [eglandular], roots fibrous or woody. Stems sprawling or procumbent, branched. Leaves alternate, (subopposite immediately proximal to flowers), petiolate [sessile]; blade ([membranous] fleshy), margins entire. Inflorescences axillary, solitary flowers. Flowers 5-merous, usually bilaterally symmetric; calyx not accrescent, tubular-obconic to campanulate, lobes 5, lanceolate; corolla white, white with blue to violet limb, blue, or violet [yellow], ± bilateral, funnelform [salverform or tubular], lobes rounded; stamens 4, inserted in abaxial 1/2 of corolla tube, didynamous plus 5th smaller, sterile filament; anthers oblong, ventrifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits; ovary 2-carpellate; style (not exserted), sigmoidally curved, proximally slender, distally expanded; stigma 2-lobed [capitate]. Fruits capsules, hemispheric, (2-valved). Seeds (130–1200), ovoid [spheric to subreniform] (foveolate-reticulate). x = 9.
Species ca. 30 (1 in the flora): introduced; South America, introduced also in Mexico, Central America, elsewhere in South America.
Diversity of Calibrachoa is greatest in South America, especially southern Brazil. Members of Calibrachoa were previously incorporated in Petunia and can be found there in some references.
