Rayless Sunflower

It has been a glorious weekend here in east Texas. For the first time in months our temperature dipped below 70F yesterday, and then Sunday morning, the thermometer registered 59F. I adore days like these where a chill hangs in the air.

The return of fall and the arrival of cooler temperatures and rain revitalizes the garden. After months of watching plants struggle, it is so nice to see them perking up and many fall performers beginning their show. One species that is becoming a favorite of mine for autumn is rayless sunflower.

I first saw it on Instagram a few years ago when Andrea England posted a picture of it in a shortgrass prairie in her suburban meadow. At first, I thought I was seeing just spent flowers and seedheads. However, after some sleuthing I realized that this photo was the rayless sunflower in bloom with its black licorice colored disks held on acid green stems. With a brief review of flower morphology, you can see where rayless sunflower gets its name. Many Asteraceae family members have a head inflorescence with two types of flowers, rays that comprised the outer row of colorful “petals” and the inner disks that form the bulk of the flower. The reason the flowers have their orb-like appearance is because they are largely absent of any rays.

The flowers of Helianthus radula emerge in autumn and are a wonderful companion to the ghostly colored Liatris elegans.

What a novelty in the plant world! I was intrigued. I contacted her offering to trade some seed, and soon I had an envelope ready to sow. Seeds germinated quickly, and I transplanted them into a sandy spot since they are native to the gulf coast. They have the most interesting foliage. For much of the growing season their orbicular leaves hugged the ground until the crowns began to elongate later in the summer. And, then out of nowhere these antennae-looking flowers pierced through the fray of grasses and forbs in my garden and attracted pollinators. I was delighted. And, the seedheads stood through wind and rain with very few bending over. Even into the winter, the seedheads were persistent until the spring mowing, although I will add a few were decimated by the birds as these frugivores foraged.

This year is the second that it has been growing in my garden, and there are even more flowers. I haven’t discerned yet if this plant is a reseeding annual or perennial, but either way it is delightful. I should know in the next few years. They are planted in a bed near our driveway, and I’ve noticed the shadows the circular flowers cast on the blacktop when the sun is at an angle in the sky. I really like to pair it with white flowers or those that have hints of white, and the strong texture pops with the more fine textured grasses.

One last note. Jenks Farmer argued that this plant needs a better name. I agree since rayless seems to hint that there is something lacking to this plant. Perhaps button sunflower or lollypop sunflower, something, really anything to better convey how wonderful this plant is.

A closeup of Helianthus radula flowers

A Lovely Aster

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I love asters. Their flowers beckon fall and provide a breath of fresh air after the sun has baked the garden for much of summer. I hope one day to have a decent collection of them here in east Texas. I’ve already realized that some gaudy selections don’t fare too well for us, and I’ve begun turning to lesser known types for my garden.

One is Symphyotrichum lateriflorum ‘White Lovely’. This calico aster has been blooming in the garden since mid-August and is one of my first asters to bloom.  I bought it when we first moved to the house three years ago from Digging Dog Nursery in an effort to start evaluating new-to-me perennials.  

Other plants in my trial bed are showing wear and tear from the summer, but ‘White Lovely’ Symphyotrichum lateriflorum erupts with gossamer blooms.

Throughout the growing season it is barely noticed with its green shroud of clean, thin foliage.   But, when it blooms it imbues the essence of flowering froth as thousands of dainty white flowers cover the plant for several weeks.  I can quickly see how massing these would create a haze surrounding taller perennials.  It is short, perhaps topping out under three feet.

Symphyotrichum lateriflorum ‘White Lovely’ highlighted with the morning dew and the first rays of sunrise. Here you can see how the plant blooms laterally or one one side, hence the lateriflorum epithet.

Allan Armitage stated in both his treatise Herbaceous Perennial Plants and Armitage's Native Plants for North American Gardens that this species doesn’t typically perform well south of Zone 6 or 7, which is odd because it is native from Canada to the gulf. But, my experience says otherwise. Some blasted rodent decided to enjoy the root system as a snack last spring. I divided it into three plants, and they were set back into good contact with soil.  If it can survive that and still look good after our summers, it is a winner in my book.

Right now, they are planted next to Pycnanthemum tenuifolium in a bed that started as a holding ground for plants in containers and trial material.  I quite like the pairing.  There is a silvery-white color echo, and the airiness of the aster flowers and the remaining circular seed heads of the mountain mint go well together. 

One final note. The story of ‘White Lovely’ is a bit of an enigma to me. How could such a great plant not have more information available about it? I searched to learn about its origin and only learned that it is likely a sport from ‘Lovely’, a more purple form of the species.  But, I can’t even find much on ‘Lovely’. So, if you know more, drop me a line. This great aster deserves to be known and grown.

I particularly like this happenstance pairing of Symphyotrichum lateriflorum ‘White Lovely’ with the fading Pycnanthemum tenuifolium.

In Praise of Ipomopsis

Ipomopsis rubra has started flowering in my garden for the first time this year. My genetics came from a single roadside plant near town that I saw blooming last year. I lucked out getting the seed just before the mowers came along for their annual July cut.

I sowed the seed last November into a cold frame and was surprised when they germinated within a week, an observation that suggested there was either no dormancy mechanism or that dry storage had allowed time for after-ripening. Three months later in early February, I transplanted the dew-collecting basal rosettes to a bed once they had had a chance to bulk up some foliage. And, now I’m able to enjoy the results of my labor.  

Ipomopsis blooming along the fence that surrounds our patch

I like watching Ruby-throated Hummingbirds flit through my plants.  The red, tubular-to-salverform flowers and the high nectar content are tell-tale characters that these avian foragers visit the plants.  Researchers have even noted that the “trilevel orientation of the stamens” provide a close fit for the base of the bird’s beak, making pollen shed onto the pollinator even more efficient.

But, I should note that even before they flower, the plants have an interesting texture due to their heavily dissected foliage. Some say the leaf’s resemblance to Taxodium foliage is where this species gets the common name standing cypress. To me, they appear like giant green pipe cleaners thrust into the ground, and when the unfortunate wind storm occurs, they can bend just as easy. 

Ipomopsis rubra foliage resembles Taxodium leaves. Perhaps that’s the origin of the common name standing cypress?

Next year, I’m going to sow seeds into some gravel beds to stress these biennials a bit more and keep them shorter to prevent the lodging issue.  Some of mine are up to at least my shoulders.  This species occurs primarily in xeric habitats across the southeast, and I wonder if our rich soil may have given them an extra boost.

Ipomopsis rubra thrives in a gravel garden in Denver.

Ipomopsis rubra growing amongst cacti, palms, and yuccas at The John Fairey Garden (formerly Peckerwood).

I’ll also take some seed back to where I collected that first handful.  Just because I thieved some to get it started at my house doesn’t mean that others shouldn’t be able to enjoy roadside Ipomopsis during the summer.

Here’s to enjoying Ipomopsis for many years to come!

Detour to Echinacea pallida

I hate interstate traffic jams, especially the ones that threaten to add an hour and eighteen minutes to a nine hour trip.  But, I love the technology like Google maps that predicts such interruptions and reroutes for treks down rural roads in an attempt to save time.  Such was the case last June when we were traveling back to Texas from Tennessee.

We ventured off the highway just before the logjam near Arkadelphia, Arkansas when a couple of Echinacea caught my eye.  As I’ve written before, the habitat and management of roadside edges help preserve wildflowers and relic plant communities.  I saw another large group in front of someone’s house and thought that if I could find a large patch and a wide shoulder, it might make for some good photographs. But, then we rounded the corner, and I gasp.  For the next quarter mile, the whole left side of the road was covered with Echinacea pallida, the pale coneflower.  

Wowzers. Have you ever seen so many Echinacea pallida?

I’ve become a huge fan of species Echinacea in recent years due to their durability and reliability over the hybrids, and seeing this mass of pale coneflower was further testament for me to how well they grow. Echinacea pallida does well in a range of conditions, which is not surprising considering it is native to a swath that extends from the Gulf of Mexico all the way up to Lake Michigan.

I pulled off onto a logging road just where the patch of Echinacea stopped.  I walked up the hillside in shorts braving ticks and chiggers, but it was worth it to see thousands of Echinacea pallida in flower.  Growing amongst the coneflowers were other wildflowers like Liatris aspera, Mimosa nuttallii, and Asclepias tuberosa.  

I started snapping away with my camera. The densest of the plants was about two telephone poles down, and I felt pulled toward this floral center of gravity.  There was little if any diversity in color that I could see, but I did notice differences in the length of the rays.  Echinacea pallida can be identified by its dropping ray florets, and it has white pollen instead of the typical yellow color of many other species in the genus.  

A close up of a solitary flower on pale coneflower. Note the absence of yellow-colored pollen.

I began to wonder what would cause this Echinacea population to be so large.  My guess is a post-seed-set mowing.  I noticed in the ground layer there were several juvenile plants sans flowers.

A shot of Echinacea pallida backlit gives a different perspective of the flower with the blackening of the cones.

As I walked back to the car, I mused on how this traffic jam and resulting detour was one of the best ever for botanizing.   However, with all the photos I took, I’m not sure if we saved any time taking the backroad or not!  

Grace is one word that comes to mind when I see Echinacea pallida. So lovely and elegant.

Carex cherokeensis, Cherokee sedge

Ever since I learned of the concept of matrix species from Noel Kingsbury and Piet Oudolf’s book Planting: A New Perspective I have searched for and evaluated good ground covering plants for the southeast.  One that I have enjoyed getting to know better is Carex cherokeensis or Cherokee sedge.  

A snapshot of Carex cherokeensis in our modest grass and Carex trial at the Plantery at Stephen F. Austin State University.

I first learned about this species when the Plantery conducted an informal trial of grasses and sedges at SFASU thanks to the help from the fine folks at Hoffman Nursery in Rougemont, NC.  Carex cherokeensis showed us it was a stalwart for east Texas.  In my naiveté, I didn’t realize it was native to our area until I found it growing along a roadside west of town.  And, then imagine my delight when I found three plants in a wet spot of my yard this past winter.  I chuckle when I think that we ordered plants from halfway across the country, and they were growing in my own backyard (literally!)

While the inflorescences are not very showy, closer inspection reveals there is a beauty to the dainty seedheads of Carex cherokeensis.

So, why do I like this living mulch?  For a variety of reasons.  The verdant foliage livens a dappled understory, and it tolerates full sun conditions like a champ with little burning.  It was also tolerate most soils save for those with heavy sand. From my encounters with Cherokee sedge in the wild, I noticed that it tends to occur as small, almost solo crowns. However, plant it in a bed, and it will form a nice cespitose clump.  It may sit there for a year, but be patient, and let it get established.  The inflorescences are not too conspicuous. They resemble inverted wheat ears and hang like thin beaded earrings above the foliage.  We do remove the whole peduncle after the seed have dropped. 

A mass of Carex cherokeensis

The students used this Carex in our food prairies in the Sprout garden, and we have slowly watched over the past three years as it has colonized open spaces with rhizome and seed.  We mow it once a year in early January when we cut back our plantings to prepare for spring bulbs to emerge. It divides well, too.  I regularly have students divide a few plants early in the semester for a primer on division and then use it in later exercises on grading propagule sizes.   

This past year, I tried propagating it from seed at home.  I collected seed from my Texas germplasm last spring and stratified it for a couple months.  I sowed it in a flat outdoors last fall and waited.  After a few weeks, I noticed a couple of green slivers popping up out of the soil but only a few.  At first I wondered what I did wrong and why more weren’t germinating.  Later, I saw that the tray had more, and eventually I came to realize that it seemed as if a few new ones were germinating each month.  

Grading Carex cherokeensis seedlings at my house. These were large enough to pot on.

The rest were allowed to remain in the tray to bulk up. Again, notice how some are barely up while others have some size to them.

I’m not sure if it’s an effect of my sowing efforts or the plant’s staggered germination biology.  Either way, I’m happy to have about 50 more plants to add to my landscape of this great Carex species.  

I spy with my little eye, Spigelia

I shrieked as my truck came to a sudden stop.  

“What is it?!” Karen said after jumping out of her skin.    

“Spigelia marilandica!!!” I exclaimed.  

“I thought you had hit something in the road,” she said with a bit of consternation in her voice.  

I apologized.  It was just that I had never seen this incredible native in the wild!  

I spy with my little eye something red. Note the abnormal flower on the right with six yellow lobes. Most have five.

I pulled my truck off to the side of the broken back road and hopped out to walk over to the forest edge.  Camera trained on the flower, I snapped away in delight.  How lucky was I finding this ruby in the rough four miles from our house.  And, since it was early May 2018, a few weeks earlier or later and I might have missed this spectacle.  

Eventually, I got back up to walk to the truck.  I gazed down the road with the dark forest on the left and bright pasture on the right.  In the glare from the sun, I noticed a few more red flowers just down the lane and smiled in delight.  There were more than just this one! And, as my eye traced the road edge further, I began to make out hundreds of the little slivers of crimson that graced the north-facing forested slope.  My jaw dropped.  I had hit the Indian pink jackpot.  

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I got to know this wonderful wildflower better through my friend Jimmy Williams.  In a similar discovery as mine, he drove around all day in Henry County, Tennessee until he found a solitary flower growing in a roadside ditch.  He saved that plant from the mower blades and cultivated it into several clumps in his red border.  He has so many he was even able to share a plant with me that’s still back at my parent’s home in Tennessee.  

Spigelia marilandica in the foreground here provides color in Jimmy William’s red border in Paris, TN between the spring and summer flowering gap.

But, I was quite surprised to find it here in the wild in Texas.  I guess having never even seen it in situ I really didn’t know what its range or its habitat was.   

However, one thing I did know is that the plant wasn’t pink.  No, it seems to have been adorned with the same name as pinks or members of the Caryophyllaceae family that appear to have their petals clipped by pinking shears.  But, Spigelia isn’t even in the same family (it’s in Loganiaceae) or even order, and yet it has the same froufrou name.  Go figure. 

I liberated a few clumps from the roadside that day to take back to my house.  They were growing in gravel tailings, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before a grader would come along and do them in.   I planted them near our house because I was afraid that deer would come along and nibble them down.  I’ve since learned that’s probably not too big a concern due to the presence of toxic alkaloids in the leaves.  

Spigelia marilandica flowering just behind our house.

The next spring, I was delighted as my plants came back and bloomed heavier than any of the clumps I saw the previous year on that shaded hillside.  I chuckle now reading accounts about how this plant needs TLC, woodland edge, and moisture.   Mine are planted on a north facing slope in sandy fill soil and receive over half a day of full sun that burns other shade lovers I’ve tried in the same spot.  And, y’all, this is in Texas.  

One plant is lovely in bloom, but en masse the floral effect is spectacular.  I’ve notice over the years in large plantings at botanic gardens that there can be quite the range of colors in flowers from seed-derived plants, everything from a dark crimson to a light salmon. Even bloom time varies within a population.  My small grouping of six plants seemed to exhibit a range of genetics, too.  

How spectacular is this mass of Indian pink in Bell’s Woodland at Chanticleer in Wayne, Pennsylvania?

The variation in color in Spigelia marilandica is apparent in this seedling-derived population in a dry creek bed.

While most Spigelia marilandica vary in their color of red, this pink Indian pink in my garden is a testament to their color variation. Note this individual’s lack of red in the developing flowers on this cyme. I’m monitoring it because along with the lack of color there seems to be something off about the way the flowers open.

And, being planted near where I sit, I’ve enjoyed watching Ruby-throated Hummingbirds dart through the Indian pinks.  They and the flower have enjoyed a long dance of coevolution, the flower preferring the lead of the bird over the bee, evidenced by evolving the long, tubular red flowers.  Yes, I was quite happy with myself to see my transplants doing so well.  

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I gasp as I sped up a bit on the same broken back road.

“This is not good,” I said to Karen who was joining me on yet another backroads excursion.

On either side of the pavement there wasn’t a leaf to be found.  It was August 2019, and while the month can certainly be a scorcher, this blight was from herbicide.  

I pulled along side where my precious Spigelia had been blooming only months earlier.  The curtain of foliage that was there had been removed and I could see deeper into the woods than I ever had.  And, there wasn’t a single Spigelia plant on the roadside edge to be found.  I was crushed.  

It kills me when road crews blanket herbicide.  I understand keeping the right-of-ways in check, but what was so bad about this hillside that needed to be controlled?  Did I need to put a sign up that said, “Only known county record of Spigelia marilandica”?  I found myself thinking about how glad I was that I did move those six plants to my house, and I drove off anxious to see this population next spring.

This month, I revisited the site, and I’m happy to report that there are still Indian pink on the hillside.  In fact, after some snooping I’ve come to realize that the population is quite safe as there are hundreds on the slope further up from the road.  I guess with such a thick edge I wasn’t able to see the Spigelia for the forest.  And, somehow even a few plants remained on the road edge.  A few show a bit of herbicide residue from their curling leaves and stunted growth.  

I’m happy that this population of Spigelia marilandica is safe from roadside spraying. This snapshot is only a few of the hundreds of plants growing on the hillside.

But, this time I didn’t take any chances.  I rescued several clumps from the ditch that I had passed over previously, and they have since joined their brothers and sisters at my house.  Plants as good as this deserve to live and flourish without want or worry from county road maintenance.

A Clematis from Texas

Growing up, I knew Clematis as mailbox plants.  The gaudy, colorful saucers adorn the post at the end of many driveways.  

But, once I did my internship at The Scott Arboretum in 2008, my world of Clematis was blown wide open.  I had no idea that there were so many forms and that there were so many great native species as well.  Here, they lost their mailbox supports; I found many species and cultivars rambling into shrubs and tree boughs.  

My favorite from that summer was Clematis texensis, the scarlet or Texas clematis.   I remember the first time I ever saw this central Texas native.  It had threaded itself through the glaucous blue foliage of a low hanging Cedrus branch right by the arboretum’s main office.  This pastel dyad of blue and red made the Clematis flowers pop.  When I see the flowers, I think of pink hot-air-balloons, even if they are turned or upside down. They aren’t the size of the mailbox blooms. No, the urn-shaped blossoms are smaller and more delicate, but I can still see them from 100 feet away. So can Ruby-throated Hummingbirds.

Who needs a mailbox? The boughs of a Cedrus are the perfect trellis for Clematis texensis!

I loved it so that I got a plant from Dan Long at Brushwood Nursery in 2014. For a few years, this member of the buttercup family grew in a container on my patio and did quite well pot-bound in a large terra-cotta planter.  My only recommendation if you go this route is to make sure it has a stable trellis.  

Can you see the hot air balloon?

Once we moved to our house, I relocated it from pot into firmament on the southside of my vegetable patch. The fleshy roots survived the transplanting just fine.  Along the fence I’m building a collection of native and interesting clematis species, and Clematis texensis has started the show by coming into bloom this last part of April. 

Clematis texensis climbs up the fence surrounding our vegetable patch.

If you don’t have a fence, consider having it grow at the base of an open shrub or tree.  You’ll find that it will clamber up through it with the help of leafy tendrils that will curl around anything these appendages can find. 

Nice crosses have been made with Clematis texensis to produce ‘Duchess of Albany’ and ‘Gravetye Beauty’. I still prefer the pure species, but all three deserve wider use in gardens. That means on your mailbox or anywhere else you see fit.

Rooting Out Bloodroot

This was the year I would finally have time to ask the homeowners if I could wander the wooded hills near their house.  I had passed the lush forest the past two springs driving into town.  I watched Erythronium albidium bloom in large colonies (yes, the flowers were visible from the road), Podophyllum peltatum unfurl in an area the size of our house, and Phlox pilosa carpet the edge with purple.  If these plants were here, what else would be?

The mayapple colony was the first thing that caught my eye on this hillside. What other plants does this woods hold?

I got a hint the week before I visited with them when I got stuck going 20 mph behind a tractor in a no passing zone.  I glanced over at the woods and a glimmer of white caught my eye.  My mind riffled through early spring flowering white plants. Could it be...  bloodroot?  

Monday afternoon during spring break, I stopped by their house, asked permission, and got it!  I offered some chocolate as a gesture to visit the woods, but I guess they didn’t want any.  

I parked near the edge of their drive and struck out through the forest.  At times it looked and even smelled like Appalachia and the east coast woods I used to wander.   I said hello to the plants I had watched for two years, the Erythronium, the Phlox, and the Podophyllum.   And, I made fresh discoveries like Viola palmata and Polygonatum biflorum.

A close up of a Sanguinaria flower. Out of focus are seed pods on this member of the poppy family

And, soon my inkling that the forest held Sanguinaria canadensis (aka bloodroot) was confirmed as I found a solitary patch.  Giddy with joy, I started looking around until I found another.  And, then another.  And, then another!!!  

They were scattered all throughout the forest, no doubt thanks to help from ants who collect the seeds and take them to their nests for their lipid-rich elaiosome on the outside of the seed coat.  This type of seed dispersal even has a name—myrmecochory. 

Up a ridge, I found the motherload.  Hundreds of plants occurred in an area about half the size of a tennis court.  Perhaps this was the progenitor colony that had spawned the many scattered populations around?  Who knows.

Wow, what a colony! The road is barely visible in the upper right corner. Here it was hiding from me all this time.

Karen went back with me the next day for better lighting for pictures, and she provides a nice scale for the size of this colony. Again, the road is in the background.

And, here is the view of the colony behind me. Almost all those green leaves are bloodroot. I wondered what made them so successful here as other spots only had a few or even none.

I looked for diversity in the population, and the best I found was this larger leaf form. I suspect that the size is due to early emergence.

I was delighted to find this ephemeral only a few miles from my house as it is rare in Texas.  Nacogdoches county is one of the southwestern most populations in the US, and seeing it brought back memories of finding the harbinger of spring when wandering forests back further east.  The name bloodroot comes from the red coloration found when breaking the rhizome, a modified stem and not a root! Funny how common names can confuse those two sometimes. That coloration is also the origin of the genera Sanguinaria; sanguis is Latin for blood.   While native Americans used the plant for dyes and a variety of ailments, the sap from the rhizome can actually kill animal cells and cause a scar. 

A solitary leaf surrounds a bloodroot flower. Most individuals have eight petals, but some selections have been made in the trade that have more.

Bloodroot is such a fascinating native that deserves more use in our gardens.  I’m happy to know that it will grow well here in dappled shade in east Texas, and I’m happy that I finally stopped to investigate that woods further.  I never know what I will find!  

The Clouds of Pycnanthemum

“Is this thyme?!?”, I remember my teenage mind questioning at the sight of foliage that resembled the herb.  It was March, and I was rummaging through the fencerows near our house looking for wildflowers on a cloudy day that couldn’t decide if it was winter or spring.  Per usual, nothing much was to be seen since I lived in the avoidance zone, but my blitheful, naive self still held out hope I might find something in the leaf litter.  

And, here it was.  I knew enough about herbs to cue in on the small, elongated leaves stooping down.  The foliage looked a bit more pointed than the mother of thyme clump I had back home, but I crushed some, and it released a spicy menthol smell supporting my teenage hypothesis.  “Wow, I’ve discovered thyme from some old homeplace,” I said to the forest around me.

Looking back on the whole experience now, I chuckle.  I didn’t know about Occam’s razor then.  Nor, did I pause to critique my thinking with questions like how has thyme survived in this underbrush, or how has it not spread out and taken over creation?

No, back then I knew thyme wasn’t native to the US; therefore, I assumed someone planted it here.  It still had its low winter foliage just like the herb in my garden. 

So, I transplanted it home and nurtured it.  And, then it started to grow. And grow and grow and grow until it was over two feet tall.  This plant was not thyme! I went through a wildflower book I had and found a match in the Lamiaceae section—Pycnanthemum tenuifolium. 

Pycnanthemum tenuifolium flowering en masse.

Narrow-leaf mountain mint is currently blooming in my garden, and seeing it flourish was a fun reminder that I make mistakes and learn from them.  Sometimes when we are wrong, it turns out better than we could have imagined! Some fifteen years ago in my teenage years I didn’t realize what I had discovered—one of the best native perennials for pollinators and other insects. 

I’ll go ahead and address the white elephant (or, should I say white-flowering herb!) in the room.  Yes, as a “mint” it can spread some, but I’ve never had the issues with it that I’ve had with other Pycnanthemum or Mentha species.  I see having more of it as a good thing.  Even with its vigor, I lost the clump I found along the roadside.  But, a few years ago, I began to hunt for plants for creating floras.  I knew where Pycnanthemum was; therefore, I decided to saunter back along the same fence row in search of it.  After a few hours, I found one inflorescence.  I collected a piece from that Tennessee plant and some seed, and this germplasm became the basis for our plants that we use on campus.   Years later, I would find local Texas ecotypes on the road.  Both are blooming now in my garden and offer so much.  

A haze of Pycnanthemum tenuifolium flowers over a perennial planting at my house.

The fine-textured foliage emerges in tight columns rising upward.  In bud the plant makes me think of the constellation Crux, or the southern cross, for the haphazard dots that attempt to form perpendicular lines.  After flowering I enjoy seeing the seedheads that persist well into winter.  

X marks the spot on Pycnanthemum tenuifolium. Since the inflorescences are cymes, that character likely generates this interesting floral architecture.

But, the flowers are the pinnacle attribute of this plant.  The blooms remind me of stratus.  Instead of countless moisture particles composing a flat, gray-white cloud that blankets the earth, here hundreds of mithril-colored flowers form sheets that hover over the foliage.  These dense flowers are the origin of the name Pycnanthemum (pycn- means dense, and -anthemum refers to the flowers).

And, the insects that flock to this all-you-can-eat-buffet is astounding—bees, wasps, flies, butterflies, and more that I’m missing.  Research has shown Pycnanthemum tenuifolium to be a great niche for beneficial insects from providing resources for native bees to creating habitat for predators and parasitoids.   I’ve observed that the plant buzzes most with activity in the middle of the day.  I have plants near each other to accentuate their seasonality, and for the pollinators it makes cloud hopping even easier.  

A zebra swallowtail waddling through the flowers on Pycnanthemum tenuifolium. Yes, I know you can’t see motion in this still picture, but trust me. It waddled.

A giant swallowtail probed Pycnanthemum tenuifolium flowers.

The other day I took advantage of an overcast sky to take photos of my narrow-leaf mountain mint.   I smiled at the similarity of seeing the dark insects dart amongst the silvery-white flowers and how they resembled the shadows of birds circling above me in a broken, gray altostratus sky.  Both looking for food and both trying to live.  This national pollinator week, I recommend planting this perennial in abundance in the garden so that you, too, can have a richer life and enjoy the clouds of Pycnanthemum and all the life that comes with it.  

Delphinium carolinianum, Rock Candy for the Garden

Delphinium carolinianum (Carolina larkspur) is flowering in my garden.  Since seeing it in Texas, it has scurried to the top of my list of favorite wildflowers.  The native stands out with unique form and color—lines of electric blue that pierce the hurly-burly of the prairie.  To me it looks like rock candy. You know, the kind that you used to eat as a kid where sugar crystals surrounded a wooden stick?  I ate it up then, and I’m eating this flower up, now.  Currently, the colors I have in bloom are the prominent rich blueberry and fewer of the light raspberry and soft grape.

Delphinium carolinianum flowers are such a stark yet cheerful blue to see against the greens and golds typically seen in grasslands.

It wasn’t on the property when we arrived.  I’ve been collecting seed from local populations, and it’s thrilling to watch plants I started from seed erupt into bloom.  As the rachis elongates, it slightly sinews from node to node, each bend a place for an immature flower. As the buds develop, the long nectary starts resembling a horn, and upon unfurling I see the spur becoming a beak of a Belted Kingfisher; the flared petals to the sides are the wings and the two pointing down the tail.  

It has taken two years to get the plants from seed to flower.  I made the mistake of sowing the seed my first fall here before I learned how the winter shadows moved in our new garden. The spot received little sun.  The seedlings struggled, and I thought all was lost when they vanished last spring.  Imagine my delight when I found the little dissected leaves breaking ground last fall!  

Before the cold set in, I relocated the plants to sunnier spots.  Now, I and the fauna of my garden have been rewarded this year with blooms.  I’ve watched the inflorescences sway from probing by Ruby-throated Hummingbirds by day and hummingbird moths by night.

But, this larkspur does have an ephemeral nature.  Soon, the rock candy will dissolve with the heat of summer, leaving only seed behind.  But, I will collect them, coax the seedlings along, and hope for an even sweeter show in years to come.  

Pick your flavor. The classic vibrant blue, …

soft purple, …

or, a light periwinkle. Or, do what I do. Collect seed and you may end up with all three.