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Shrub with trifoliate leaves and yellow flowers followed by backward curving seed pods; leaves foetid when crushed.
The white flowers often have reddish-purple stripes and can reach 2-5 cm in diameter. However, flower size and shape can vary depending on location.
It is a prickly, glabrous, branching herb with yellow juice and showy yellow flowers. The plants is toxic to animals and cattle avoid grazing this plant.
This rather bizarre, perennial plant, which grows to a height of approximately 30 cm (11.8 in), propagates vegetatively by tubers. Its stem, underground, is broad and glabrous. Bloom color: Green, Purple, Brown/Bronze. It is considered toxic, in as much as the leaves and tuber are emetic, if swallowed. The plant contains calcium oxylate crystals. These cause an extremely unpleasant sensation similar to needles being stuck into the mouth and tongue if they are eaten.
It is pollinated by Ceratopogonid flies; these are the small, blood-sucking flies that pester humans and other mammals in the humid summer. The flowers of Aristolochia watsonii resemble a mouse's ear-translucent funnels with fur and veins-and give off a musty odor. The fly apparently expects to find a blood meal, and instead is trapped inside the flower tube overnight. During the night the flower releases pollen. The following morning the flower releases the pollen-covered fly. If the fly visits another flower it effects pollination.
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