I started seeing this flower on the side of the road close to my home. I never noticed it before this year. It obviously grows to at least a foot tall, but there were plants blooming at only a couple inches tall. I assume they were mowed. The color is actually a bit darker than it looks here. Not sure why they came out so light. It was in the afternoon though, so maybe they lighten up as the day goes on. They do seem to close at night, or maybe the flowers are just single day and they were at the end of their life. Just curious what it is. It's pretty, but if I didn't notice it because it wasn't there until this year, I might not want it. If it is new, then it grew really fast to cover as much area as it did.

Some sort of Ruellia? There are native species, but Mexican Petunia (Ruellia simplex) is a garden escapee that's somewhat invasive in the right conditions.

I thought Ruellia at first too, but the stamens are very noticeable on my flower and not so in the pics I've seen of Ruellia. They sort of look a bit like real geraniums, but the leaves don't match. Plus, it's Florida.

The overall look of the plant seems Ruellia-ish, if that makes sense. After looking at R. simplex again, I think those leaves are too long and narrow to be your mystery plant.

A couple of these photos of R. caroliniensis look similar to me:
https://florida.plantatlas.usf...
https://www.fnps.org/plant/rue...

As for Geraniums (not the pelargonium sorts), the only one I know that grows wild in the Southeast US is Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum) The flower is somewhat similar, but the leaves (such as I can see them) seem wrong for a Geranium (or Pelargonium).

If you see them again, maybe try to get a photo that shows the leaf shape better...they looked a bit droopy in your photo- do y'all need rain there?

Yup, that's the one. Not sure how I didn't look at that particular plant, since I went straight to Ruellia myself. It is certainly not the Mexican variety, but caroliniensis fits it very well. The pictures of the full plant look right too. Thank you, since I had obviously missed seeing it to begin with and hadn't gotten around to looking at native plant sites yet.

When I took the pic, we did need rain. Since then, we got some. Boy, did we get some. Got a little bit of wind too. Enough to knock down the top 18 feet of the maple tree next door into our yard, as well as some other whole trees, light posts, chain link fences, and a whole lot of smaller stuff. At best, we had a down burst right around my house. There was a tornado warning as well, but I was at work. I would rather not have rain if it brings stuff like that. At least we got the branch cut up 10 minutes before yard waste pick up came by the day after the storm came through.

Thank you for showing me what I missed. I blame old age. I really did go straight to Ruellia and yet somehow missed seeing the right one. Well, getting older, if not quite old age. My mom would smack me if I said I was truly old.

I think you may have just had a case of what I call 'can't-see-for-looking syndrome'. I have episodes very often!