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Petunia exserta (Brazilian Red Petunia) A tender perennial or annual plant that grows fast to form a leafy 1- to 2-foot-tall plant topped by cheery ruby-red star-shaped flowers from early summer through fall (into winter in mild climates). The flower type is called hypocrateriform, meaning a corolla tube that abruptly spreads and in this case, it is the very attractive red corolla sitting atop a long tube with exerted stigma and stamens, the later with showy golden pollen.
Plant in full coastal sun, morning sun or bright shade and irrigate regularly to occasionally. Winter hardy in USDA zones 9b and above but an annual plant elsewhere.
Petunia exserta is a rare plant is endemic to a relatively small area (~500 sq km) of the Serras de Sudeste in the southeastern portion of Rio Grande do Sul state in southernmost Brazil, near Uruguay, where is can be found growing within shallow caves and cracks on sandstone towers where it is protected from direct sunlight and rainfall. It was described in 1987 by João Renato Stehmann of the University of Minas Gerais in the journal Napaea: Revista de botânica. It is not a parent of the red flowering commercial Petunia varieties, having been discovered decades after these varieties were first hybridized. It is the only ornithophilous (bird pollinated) species of the genus and is pollinated by hummingbirds. It does not have a scent to attract pollinators such as its closest relatives do; the magenta-pink flowered Petunia secreta, which is pollinated by bees and the notably fragrant white flowering Petunia axillaris, that attracts nocturnal pollination by a hawkmoth. It is considered to be on the brink of extinction due to habitat loss and hybridization with Petunia axillaris. The name for the genus comes from Latinized form of the Brazilian name 'petun' that was used for tobacco, a closely related plant in the Solanaceae. The specific epithet is a Latin word meaning "projecting" or "thrust forth" in reference to the exerted stamens and stigma.
Our plants grown from seed from a plant provided to us in 2016 by UCSB Biology greenhouse manager Cameron Hannah-Bick.
The information about Petunia exserta that is displayed on this web page is based on research conducted in our nursery's horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We will also include observations made about this plant as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens that we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We also incorporate comments that we receive from others and welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they share cultural information that aids others growing this plant.
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