Heart’s delight

Plants perennial. Stems procumbent to semierect, slightly to moderately branched, elongate, often reddish at nodes, viscid. Leaves: petiole 1-9 cm; blade deltate-ovate to elliptic, 2-8 × 2-6.5 cm, margins repand to sinuate, frequently undulate, adaxial surface glandular-puberulent, abaxial surface glandular-pubescent. Inflorescences: peduncle longer than subtending petiole; bracts ovate to elliptic, 5-16 × 2-10 mm, papery, glandular-pubescent; flowers 20-75. Perianth: tube magenta, 12-25 mm, limb bright magenta, 8-10 mm diam. Fruits narrowly turbinate, 6-9 × 3-4.5 mm, ± 2 times as long as wide, scarious, base attenuate, rounded or truncate at apex, with a broadly conic beak; wings 5, finely reticulate, thin walled, narrow, cavities extending throughout.

Flowering winter-spring. Sandy soils, live-oak grasslands; 0-100 m; Tex.

Abronia ameliae has limited cultivation as an ornamental in southern Texas.