Ruellia 'R10-102'

Summary

UC Davis is located in Davis, California, this site has a silty clay loam soil and plants are irrigated with potable water. More information about the field sites is located in the Nuts & Bolts section.

Ruellia Mayan Purple is part of the Mayan™ series of Mexican petunia, Ruellia simplex, bred at the University of Florida at Gainesville with the goal of producing sterile cultivars that would not pose a threat of invasiveness by seed dispersal, and would be smaller overall than the species. Mayan Purple was winter deciduous, had the habit of spreading by underground runners, and tended to leave a bare middle while creating a non-uniform ring of stems further out. It showed no significant differences between treatments in its ultimate height and width of 30.5” (77.7cm) and 59” (149.7cm) respectively.  Overall appearance was best at 40% of ETo and was still very good at 20% of ETo. Flowering was also significantly better on the 40% treatment than on the higher levels of irrigation (Table 14). This cultivar showed a definite preference for low water, and would have scored higher overall were it not for its unfortunate growth habit of sending up stems too far from the original plant to create a solid, unified plant appearance.