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Snowball sand verbena (Abronia fragrans)

Description

Abronia fragrans (sweet sand-verbena, snowball sand-verbena, prairie snowball, fragrant verbena) is a species of sand verbena. Abronia fragrans, sweet sand-verbena, is an herbaceous perennial with an upright or sprawling growth habit, reaching 8–40 inches (about 20–102 cm). It grows from a taproot with sticky, hairy stems growing from 7.1 inches to 3.3 feet (18–100 cm) long. The flowers consist of 4 to 5 petaloid sepals and sepaloid bracts with a tubular corolla borne in clusters of 25 to 80 at the ends of stems. The blossoms are usually white but may be green-, lavender-, or pink-tinged. The sticky leaves are simple and opposite, up to 3.5" (8.89 cm) long and 1.2" (3 cm) wide, and elliptical or linear. The fruits are egg-shaped achenes about 0.1" (.25 cm) long, lustrous, and black or brown. The achene is enclosed within a leathery top-shaped calyx base[3] which may or may not be winged.

Taxonomic tree

  • Domain: Eukarya

    • Kingdom: Plantae

      • Phylum: Magnoliophyta

        • Class: Magnoliopsida

          • Order: Caryophyllales

            • Family: Nyctaginaceae

              • Genus: Abronia