Tricardia is a monotypic genus of flowering plants in the borage family containing the single species Tricardia watsonii, which is known by the common name threehearts.[1] It is native to the southwestern United States, where it grows in deserts and mountains in sandy open habitat, often beneath shrubs. It is a perennial herb growing from a taproot and a woody caudex covered with the shreddy remains of previous seasons' herbage. It produces several erect stems up to about 40 centimeters tall. Most of the leaves are located in a basal rosette about the caudex. They are lance-shaped and coated thinly in woolly hairs. They are up to 9 centimeters long and are borne on petioles. A few smaller leaves occur higher on the stem. Flowers occur in a loose cyme at the top of the stem. Each has a calyx of five sepals. The outer three are heart-shaped and green to pink or purple in color, and the inner two are much smaller and narrower. The flower within is bell-shaped, white with central purple markings, and roughly half a centimeter wide. The fruit is a capsule just under a centimeter long which contains 4 to 8 seeds.
| Tricardia | |
|---|---|
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Scientific classification 
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| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Clade: | Asterids |
| Order: | Boraginales |
| Family: | Boraginaceae |
| Subfamily: | Hydrophylloideae |
| Genus: | Tricardia Torr. ex S.Watson |
| Species: | T. watsonii
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| Binomial name | |
| Tricardia watsonii Torr. ex S.Watson
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References
edit- ^ USDA, NRCS (n.d.). "Tricardia watsonii". The PLANTS Database (plants.usda.gov). Greensboro, North Carolina: National Plant Data Team. Retrieved 14 December 2015.
External links
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