Four o'clock, or marvel of Peru, is a bushy flower from tropical America that opens in late afternoon, roughly between 4 and 8 p.m., stays open through the night with a sweet scent, and closes by morning. It is a common garden flower in the US, where it reseeds freely and, in warm areas, comes back each year from its large, potato-like roots.
Appearance
- Growth form
- A bushy, much-branched perennial usually 1.5–4 ft (0.5–1.2 m) tall, occasionally taller. It grows from large, potato-like tuberous roots.
- Flowers
- Funnel-shaped flowers with five shallow lobes, in clusters of three to seven. Colors include white, pink, magenta, red, and yellow. One plant can carry several colors at once, and single flowers may be striped or spotted. The colorful "petals" are actually the .
- Flowering time
- Blooms from summer into fall. Each flower opens in late afternoon or on cloudy days, stays open about 16–20 hours, and closes the next morning.
- Fruit
- Each flower leaves a single round, wrinkled seed that turns from greenish-yellow to black. Inside is a white, powdery filling.
Look-alikes
Garden phloxPhlox paniculata
Garden phlox bears many flowers together in large, branched clusters at the tops of the stems. Four o'clocks carry smaller groups of three to seven flowers that open in late afternoon and close by morning.
Why they get mixed upBoth fill summer gardens with pink, white, or purple tubular flowers.
Where it lives
- Typical habitats
- Gardens
- Yards
- Range
- Native to tropical Mexico and Central America, and possibly parts of South America. It is grown around the world and has naturalized in parts of the US.
- Preferred conditions
- Best in full sun but tolerates part shade. Likes light, well-drained soil. The roots survive winter in warm areas (roughly USDA zones 7–10, where frost only kills the tops); in colder areas it is grown as an annual or the tubers are dug up for winter.
Growing it
- Care
- Frost kills the tops, but the tubers survive in the ground in mild areas. In colder areas, dig them before the first fall freeze, store indoors, and replant after the last spring frost. It self-seeds vigorously and can become weedy.
- Propagation
- Grows easily from seed, which sprouts quickly in warm soil, or from saved tubers.
- Toxicity
- Seeds and roots can cause stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea if eaten, and handling the roots may irritate skin.
Conservation
- IUCN Red List
- NENot EvaluatedNot yet assessed
Culture and stories
- Culture and stories
- In the early 1900s, botanist Carl Correns used four o'clocks with patchy green-and-white leaves to show that some traits are passed on outside the cell nucleus. Crossing dark-pink and white flowers gives light-pink offspring, a classic example of .
- Mirabilis is Latin for "wonderful"; jalapa refers to Xalapa (Jalapa), a city in Mexico.
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