Plant of the day is: Androcymbium gramineum

Plant of the day is: Androcymbium gramineum or turtle shell/onion of the crows

So I know its gonna be a rough research hunt when I have a hard time nailing down that it is not in fact another species and that the world agrees on what it is.  Seems to me it's still a little vague and could use a botanist to just put his/her foot down on the matter.

I can tell you that it is from Western Sahara and Mauritania.  Yeah you know, that one country just the the northwest of Senegal.  Yeah.  I had to check a map.

As far as I can tell it is a small slender plant with grass-like leaves.  It grows from a bulb and has white/mauve flowers.  It grows in sandy/rocky/dry places.

I've found sites that list this species as a synonym with Androcymbium europaeum BUT I actually ran across an obscure reference when looking for photos that says that gramineum has dehiscent capsules while europaeum has indehiscent capsules.  I'll let you look it up for you're curious.  But it's a useful and prominent distinction.  I find references of gramineum existing in southern Spain (Almeria to be exact) but I wonder if it's not in fact europaeum.  Tough stuff.

Dehiscence

Along the above lines of confusion, I did find that there is quite a bit of natural variation in populations depending on their locations, which is pretty cool.  If one were able to grow these in any number I should think some really fantastic hybrids could be produced (tissue culture would also be extremely fun to try on something like this).

It is a member of the Colchicaceae family, of which I only recognize Colchicum the type genus and Uvularia surprisingly (there is a native Uvularia grandiflora here in MO).

Anyways, it's nifty.  And fairly endemic to those regions.  A real interesting plant that has yet to be appreciated to its fullest I think.

Now the fun part.  Pictures.  Some of these may be europaeum or another species but you get the idea.

 Love this one in the pebbles

Plant of the day is: Silene aucalis or moss campion

Plant of the day is Silene aucalis or moss campion

A member of the pink family (sometimes carnation family), it IS in fact fairly closely related to the carnation.  It is in the same genus as Silene virginica, which is a wonderful Missouri native called fire pink.

This little plant actually has a pretty big range.  It is an alpine plant and lives quite far to the north.  In the US it exists in most of the states west of Kansas (cept YOU California, deal with it).  In Maine it may be extirpated and it is threatened in New Hampshire.  When I see a plant like this that is relatively adapted to a wide range of geographic locations begin to disappear I start to wonder why.

But yes, so this plant MAY actually grow here in Missouri believe it or not.  The key here is well drained soils.  In its natural home it likes to live on rocky outcrops, lots of wind, not necessarily even a lot of water.  It might tolerate a little more water than a few other rock garden plants but it does need to be well drained.

The neat thing about them is that they are an evergreen, with some really interesting foliage that you could almost mistake for a clump of moss if you weren't careful.  It usually does not get very large but CAN get up to two feet in diameter.  There are some really old plants up in Alaska and they are estimated around 350 years old.

But without further adieu, here ya go, a few pictures.

Habit

 Close up of flowers and foliage

Don't plant in heavy soil :).

Images are Wikimedia Commons