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Purple and Blue Wildflower Gallery

Madder or Coffee Family

              

Rubiaceae - Madder or Coffee Family
Poorjoe (Rough Buttonweed) Diodia teres
Lavender to whitish tube flowers have 4 lobes, up to about 1/4" wide, but impoverished flowers can be very tiny. Long bristles (margin of the stipules) surrounding flowers are white but turn red when distressed. Fruit is red with a 4 pointed green crown (persistent sepals). Linear leaves, up to 2" long, grow opposite and appear whorled with smaller leaf-like stipules and flowers. Leaf axis spacing can be wide or narrow depending on conditions. Plant erect to prostrate, 8" long (but the above was over a foot long), single stem from a taproot. This plant can be found in the most inhospitable locations and regrows after being mowed.
Photos taken in Taylor County, Texas, August 2004, October 2007
(Native of Texas - Taylor, Callahan, Brown)

                    

Photos taken in Van Zandt County, Texas, November 2006

Similar Species

Buttonweed Diodia virginiana
Flower has an elongated tube base. Leaves small and fringed.
(Native of east Texas)