虞美人 yu mei ren

Herbs, annual, setose throughout, rarely glabrous. Stems erect, 25-90 cm tall, branched, yellowish setose. Leaves alternate; blade lanceolate or narrowly ovate, 3-15 × 1-6 cm, both surfaces yellowish setose, veins prominent abaxially and slightly concave adaxially, pinnatifid, below divided; lobes lanceolate and bipinnatilobate, above parted or again lobed; lobes lanceolate, uppermost one serrate-pinnatilobate, terminal lobes usually large; lobules apically acuminate; lower leaves petiolate but upper ones sessile. Flowers solitary on stem and branch apices, bowl-shaped, 6-9 cm in diam. Pedicel 10-15 cm, compressed yellowish setose. Flower buds nutant, oblong-obovoid, setose. Sepals 2, green, broadly elliptic, 1-1.8 cm, adaxially setose. Petals 4, rich scarlet, occasionally mauvish, pink, orange, or white, with or without a basal dark blotch or flecking, orbicular, transversely broadly elliptic or broadly obovate, 2.5-4.5 cm, overlapping, entire, rarely crenate or apex incised. Stamens many; filaments dark mauve or purplish, filamentous, ca. 8 mm; anthers blue, oblong, ca. 1 mm. Ovary obovoid, 7-10 mm, glabrous; stigmas 8-12, actinomorphic, united into compressed disk, margin crenate. Capsule broadly obovoid, 10-18 mm, glabrous, inconspicuously costate. Seeds many, reniform-oblong, ca. 1 mm. Fl. Mar-Aug. 2n = 14.

Cultivated in China, sometimes escaping (in Taiwan) [native to N Africa, SW Asia, and Europe].

This species is used ornamentally and includes flowers in various colors as well as bicolored and semidouble forms.