genus

Gilias

Gilia

Field notes

Gilia is a genus of flowering plants in the Polemoniaceae family and is related to phlox. It includes 39 species native to the Americas, ranging from British Columbia to Texas and northern Mexico, and to Ohio, in North America, and from Ecuador and Peru to southern Chile and Argentina in South America. These Western native plants are best sown in sunny, well-draining soil in the temperate and tropical regions of the Americas, where they occur mainly in desert or semi-desert habitats

They are summer annuals, rarely perennials, growing to 10–120 cm (4-48 in) tall. The leaves are spirally arranged, usually pinnate (rarely simple), forming a basal rosette in most species. The flowers are produced in a panicle, with a five-lobed corolla, which can be blue, white, pink or yellow.

Gilia species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Schinia aurantiaca and Schinia biundulata (the latter feeds exclusively on G. cana).

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Range

United States

Greener is more native, amber more introduced; paler is less certain. How this was decided

Key traits

From USDA PLANTS.

Top native gilias All

Native to the US, ranked by caterpillars, then bees and other hosts, food, flowers and shelter.

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