Wigandia urens

Wigandia urens, or fiberglass plant, is a plant of the family Namaceae.

Description

It is an erect shrubby plant up to 6 meters tall that can develop trichomes and urticating hairs with petioles 2.5 to 10 cm long and oval leaves 5.5 to 50 cm long and 3.5 to 37 cm wide. The flowers develop calyx lobes 4 to 15 mm long, with broadly campanulate corollas whose colors can differ between purple, blue or whitish lilac 1.5 to 2.2 cm long. It has stamens attached to the corollas for a quarter of their length and hairy filaments 1.2 to 1.5 cm long in the lower 3 quarters. It has slightly oblong anthers 3 to 6 mm.
There are a variety of associated herbivorous insects, including milpa grasshopper, conspicuous cricket, tree crickets, green peach aphid, Chichicastlera moth, and white-spotted owl moth, among others.

Distribution and habitat

It can be found in pine-oak forests, cloud forests, low deciduous forest and xerophilous scrubland at altitudes from 20 to 3000 m above sea level. It is distributed in Sinaloa, Durango, Nayarit, Zacatecas, Jalisco, Colima, Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí, Michoacán, Querétaro, Hidalgo, State of Mexico, Mexico City, Tlaxcala, Morelos, Guerrero, Puebla, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Chiapas, all of Central America as far away as Colombia and Venezuela. Specimens have been found in Australia and Africa, and it is also considered an invasive species in the western Himalayas like Uttarakhand state in India.

Uses

It is often used for ornamental purposes, as well as ceremonial and religious purposes. It is also used as a remedy to treat syphilis, rheumatism, and insomnia.