Spiny false fiddleleaf

Hydrolea extra-axillaris C. Morren; H. tetragynia Sessé & Mociño; H. trigyna Swartz; Nama extra-axillaris (C. Morren) Kuntze

Herbs or small shrubs, erect or decumbent, to 20 dm, un­branched to broadly branched. Stems green, brown, or purple, pubescent or hispid-hirsute, oc­casionally glabrous, usually densely covered with short, glandular trichomes; thorns 1 or 2 per node or absent, 4–30 × 0.4–2 mm. Leaf blades ovate to lan­ceolate, oc­casionally linear, 1–12 × 0.2–3 cm, base atten­uate to acute, margins entire or serrulate, surfaces puberulent to hispid-hirsute, with or without glandular trichomes. Inflorescences terminal, narrow or broadly branching, leafy panicles or clustered at branch tips, 20–100-flowered. Flowers: sepals lanceolate, 6–14 × 1.5–3.5 mm, puberulent to hispid-hirsute, with glan­dular trichomes; corolla blue, rarely white, petals 5–17 × 2–12 mm; ovary puberulent, upper 1/2 usually glandular-pubescent; styles 2–4, 1.5–13 mm, glandular-pubescent toward bases. Capsules globose to ovoid, 3.5–8 × 3–7 mm, upper 1/2 puberulent or glandular-pubescent. Seeds ovoid to cylindric, symmetric, 0.4–0.7 × 0.2–0.3 mm. 2n = 20, 40.

Flowering year-round. Wet pond margins, open flood plains; 0–10 m; Tex.; Mexico; Central America; South America (south to Argentina).

In the flora area, var. spinosa is known from Cameron County. Specimens vary in pubescence, thorniness, and leaf shape and size.