Wishbone bush is a low, much-branched perennial with slender, somewhat weak stems, woody at the base, herbacious above, and ascending to decumbent.  The stems repeatedly fork, are glandular-hairy and sometimes are supported by other bushes.  The opposite, entire-margined leaves are ovate to ± heart-shaped.  The flowers are in green, calyx-like involucres which are campanulate and clustered near the ends of branches.  What appears at first to be the five petals are actually petaloid sepals which are cleft and pink to purple-red in color.  Wishbone bush has no petals. The five long-exserted stamens are whitish with yellow anthers.  This is a fairly common bush on dry slopes and stony washes mostly below 2500' in coastal sage scrub, chaparral and foothill woodlands from cismontane central California to San Diego Co. and extending to the desert edge and Channel Islands, blooming from December to June.  It gets its common name from the many dry forking stems which resemble a chicken "wishbone," and the family name derives from the fact that it is night-pollinated and opens in the mid-afternoon.  These pictures were taken on the Mt. Wilson Trail above Sierra Madre.

Click here for Latin name derivations: 1) Mirabilis 2) laevis 3) crassifolia.
Pronunciation: mi-RAB-il-is LEE-vis kras-i-FO-lee-a.
Click here for Botanical Term Meanings.
Formerly Mirabilis californica.