Cobaea Cav.

Commemorating Father B. Cobo (1572–1659), Jesuit priest, naturalist and traveller in Mexico and Peru.

Perennial herbs or woody climbers. Leaves alternate, pinnate with a terminal tendril. Flowers solitary in the leaf axils, green to purple, fragrant when mature. Calyx leafy, 5-lobed and bent back. Corolla cuplike. Stamens 5, protruding. Fruit a fleshy capsule containing flat, winged seeds.

The unusual perennial climbing plant, C. scandens, is often grown as an annual; it is placed by some authors in the family Cobaeaceae.

Seed.

The cultivated plant a tendril climber with large, open, cup-and-saucer-shaped flowers.

10 species from tropical America.

Herklots (1986).

Source: Spencer, R. (2002). Polemoniaceae. In: Spencer, R.. Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 4. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 3. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.

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kingdom Plantae
phylum   Tracheophyta
class    Magnoliopsida
superorder     Asteranae
order      Ericales
family       Polemoniaceae
Higher taxa
Subordinate taxa
species         Cobaea scandens Cav.