Gaura parviflora is a species of Gaura

Gaura

Gaura is a genus of flowering plants in the family Onagraceae, native to North America. The genus includes many species known commonly as beeblossoms...

native to the central United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and northern Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, from Nebraska

Nebraska

Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....

 and Wyoming

Wyoming

Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...

 south to Durango

Durango

Durango officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Durango is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is located in Northwest Mexico. With a population of 1,632,934, it has Mexico's second-lowest population density, after Baja...

 and Nuevo Leon

Nuevo León

Nuevo León It is located in Northeastern Mexico. It is bordered by the states of Tamaulipas to the north and east, San Luis Potosí to the south, and Coahuila to the west. To the north, Nuevo León has a 15 kilometer stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border adjacent to the U.S...

.

It is an annual plant

Annual plant

An annual plant is a plant that usually germinates, flowers, and dies in a year or season. True annuals will only live longer than a year if they are prevented from setting seed...

 growing to 0.2–2 m (rarely 3 m) tall, unbranched, or if branched, only below the flower spikes. The leaves

Leaf

A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....

 are 2–20 cm long, lance-shaped, and are covered with soft hair. The flower spikes are 20–30 cm long, covered with green flower buds, which open at night or before dawn with small flowers 5 mm diameter with four pink petals.

Nomenclature

The species remains widely known as Gaura parviflora, this name being published in 1832 and for a long time considered the correct name for the species. However, an overlooked but validly published name G. mollis had been published earlier by Thomas Potts James in 1825. A proposal was made to conserve the name G. parviflora over G. mollis, and this was accepted by the International Botanical Congress Committee for Spermatophyta, so G. parviflora remains the correct name. Despite this, the rejected name G. mollis appears in some major sources.

Weed status

It is naturalized

Naturalisation (biology)

In biology, naturalisation is any process by which a non-native organism spreads into the wild and its reproduction is sufficient to maintain its population. Such populations are said to be naturalised....

 and often invasive in other parts of the United States, and in Australia, China, Japan, and South America.