| Author | (Jacquin) J.F. Macbride | |
| Distribution | Throughout the Coastal Plain, but not quite reaching the Sandhills proper. Is clearly spreading inland as is now "invading" the eastern parts of the Piedmont in recent years; one population found in 2020 is in the Piedmont of Harnett County (Raven Rock SP), and found west to Alamance County in 2022 (NCU specimen).
Native of South America; in N.A. Coastal Plain (rare in the Piedmont) from VA to FL-TX-AR; central TN. | |
| Abundance | Frequent to locally very common. | |
| Habitat | Moist or wet soil of roadside ditches, swales, marshes, swampy woods, depressions, wet roadbeds. Sometimes in drier situations. | |
| Phenology | Flowering and fruiting June-September. | |
| Identification | Colombian Waxweed grows 1-2 feet tall, with few strongly ascending branches. The leaves are short and elliptical, tapered to a short stalk. The rather small flowers grow in leaf axils, have a red-brown tube and 6 flaring magenta-rose lobes, each with a central red stripe. The range of the native Blue Waxweed (C. viscosissima) abuts Colombian Waxweed in Wake County though is essentially a Piedmont and mountain species; it differs in its much larger leaves which have a taper-tip, and the petals somewhat more purple in color than rose or magenta. | |
| Taxonomic Comments | The species epithet comes from the Colombian port city of Cartagena.
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| Other Common Name(s) | | |
| State Rank | SE * | |
| Global Rank | G5? | |
| State Status | | |
| US Status | | |
| USACE-agcp | FAC link |
| USACE-emp | FAC link |
