Plant of the day is: Posoqueria longiflora or Needle Flower Tree

Plant of the days is: Posoqueria longiflora or Needle Flower Tree

This plant is a tropical tree native to Mexico and Brazil.  It has some truly striking flowers that are reportedly visited by hawk moths.  The flowers are white and smell like gardenia's which are in the same family (Rubiaceae), they have very narrow tubes opening to 5 petals.  I'm not going to get into the craziness of how the flowers disperse pollen, but suffice it to say, they flowers use some cheeky maneuvers with their anthers to distribute pollen on their visiting pollinators.

So, it gets anywhere from 4' to 30'.  I've seen reports of it being a slow grower and a fast grower.  My initial observations lean towards slow to medium.  It prefers moist acidic soil with full sun to filtered light.  Hardy in zone 9, 10 and needs a minimum temp of around 50F.  I can vouch that it does not take to alkaline soils well and will begin to show some interveinal chlorosis.

You COULD grow this as a house plant likely.  You are going to need a pretty bright area though, especially for the winter.  I have a feeling it's well worth the effort with flowers that smell so great.

Other fun fact, the name is derived form the local Galibi people of French Guiana.  They call the plant Aymara-Posopheri.  The aymara is a fish that eats the fruit that falls into the water.  Fun times.

It has taken me a little longer to memorize than usual BUT hey, just look at it everyday for long enough and you'll get anything right?

Enjoy.

Plant of the day is Parthenium integrifolium or wild quinine/American feverfew

Plant of the day is Parthenium integrifolium or wild quinine/American feverfew

We're going back to a charming little MO native for this one.  You can find a really nice mass planting of this out at the Shaw Nature Reserve's Whitmire Wildflower Garden.  It looked great this year, very clean foliage to go with some interesting flowers.

Habit/ID:  Grows to a height of about 2 feet, it actually forms basal foliage first and then will send out a flower stalk with smaller alternate leaves on the stem with short petioles.  Leaves are variably serrate (to some degree), some look more crenate, some look more dentate.  Funny thing about that is that the species name integrifolium indicates that the leaf is entire, ahhh taxonomists and Latin.

Flowers:  The inflorescence is a flat(ish) headed cluster of small white flowers.  Kind of almost like cauliflower looking clusters really.  It does look like an aster flower.  The flowers smell nice, but not overpoweringly strong.  Has a significant taproot but will also spread a little via rhizomes.

Culture/Use:  Plant in full sun, dry to well drained loam soils'll do.  The plants at Whitmire actually get some shade but still do quite well.  Illinoiswildflowers.info (great site) mentions to plant after frost but before active growth later in the spring.  No mention is made of fall planting, which I'm curious about.  Plant this with the Liatris pycnostachya or another Liatris.  If you can find the right combo I'm sure the purple and white will look great.  Best thing is...fairly pest free, good form, and pretty tough once it's established.  Did I mention it's native?

Other uses:  It's been used by all kinds of people for all kinds of things, look it up, I'm more plant focused today :).

Depending on the performance of a few of my plants this year, I may put this in my own tiny garden soon.

Endangered:  There is a fair bit of it here, but it's near extirpation in Minnesota, where agriculture all but wiped it out.  The only remaining populations to the south escaped because they were located near rail lines that could be plowed.  Now that railroads routinely spray herbicides around tracks, populations have further dwindled.  It has been listed as an endangered species in Minnesota since 1984.

Think of biodiversity like a shrinking bubble, I do :/.

 Photo from http://www.thehighline.org

Because look how you can use it!

Getting ready to flower

Plant of the day is: Rosenbergiodendron longiflorum or angel of the night

Plant of the day is: Rosenbergiodendron longiflorum or angel of the night

Credit to Rafael Moricete Jr.: New York Botanical Garden

This is a tropical plant, because lets face it, I can't do an alpine every day.

A note:  This seems to be the more widely accepted name BUT you can find much more information on it's synonymous name Randia ruiziana, so hunt there if you pursue further.

It is a fan of lower sited areas around rivers/streams and the like and is situated roughly around the country of Bolivia.  It reportedly makes for a good houseplant if you can keep it happy.  It has white flowers with 5 petals that are a bit pointed and reflexed.  If you are keeping it indoors, it flowers on "old wood" which means that the flower buds are formed before winter sets in so DON'T prune until after the plant has flowered.  Flowers in the winter, just when you need a pick me up!

They are supposed to have extremely fragrant flowers, so much so that you can dry flowers on a piece of paper and the smell will stick around for days.  Neat!  It will grow to about 2-3 feet (I can confirm that) in a container and needs a minimum temp of 60 degrees.  Pretend it lives in a jungle for culture tips.  Do NOT over water however, as the roots will rot.  Make sure the first couple of inches of soil are dry before watering.  It does prefer acidic soil so if you see interveinal chlorosis keep that in mind.  Fe.

Best part:  Fruit is reportedly edible, do not quote me, triple check that yourself if you ever eat one.  Other members of the genus...megacarpa for example are supposed to have pretty sizeable fruit comparable to a fig.

Tropical Wednesday's doesn't have any kind of alliteration going for it.  I'll have to work on things like that.  Another plant with VERY few pictures available online, get to it folks!  Enjoy.

Lifted from discoverlife.org

Plant of the day is Rhodothamnus chamaecistus or dwarf alpenrose

Plant of the day is: Rhodothamnus chamaecistus or dwarf alpenrose

Another one that took me a few minutes just to find a common name for.  I had to snag it off of a German wiki page (thanks translator!).  This is another wonderful alpine plant in the Ericaceae or heath family, it is a dwarf shrub but you could easily mistake it for an herbaceous perennial.  Exists in the eastern alps from elevations of around 1000 to 2000 meters.

One site says that it is often found on limestone screes but another I found said that when container grown it should be grown in an acidic soil.  I'm going to go with the natural habitat conditions on this one and I imagine it can handle neutral to alkaline soils just fine.  It is reportedly quite difficult to germinate from seed.  Fluctuations between freezing and higher temps may help break dormancy.  Cuttings can be rooted from them but they are also difficult.  One reference I found was to etiolate the plant by putting another pot on top of it (which will prompt it to produce more shoots), these younger shoots may root better.  Hormone applications to the stem might not do much (from the reports I read).

It prefers a sunny location and provided good drainage, can take a variety of water conditions.  Blooms from June to July in it's eastern Alp habitat.

This is a short one, as information isn't copious.  It's kind of one of those niche die hard alpine lovers plants.  Rhodothamnus is a small genus with only 2 widely accepted species.  There is another species that reportedly can be found in the northeastern part of Turkey.

If this looks similar to yesterdays plant of the day, well, it is.  Fairly closely related.

Enjoy.

Plant of the day is: Phyllodoce caerulea or blue heath/purple mountain heather

Plant of the day is Phyllodoce caerulea or blue heath/purple mountain heather

This plant has a fairly wide distribution across the circumboreal region.  This teaches me something interesting and new.  Josias Braun-Blanquet and Armen Takhtajan these geobotanists (thats a thing??) divided up this region based on plant compositions.  I'm really gonna have to dig into this, it's fascinating.  As it were, the circumboreal region is the largest floristic region in the world.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumboreal

FUN FACT OF THE DAY:  In phytogeography (yes, also a thing), a phytochorion is a geographic area with a fairly uniform distribution of plant species.  

But I digress,

Blue heath is the UK common name, where it occurs in northern parts of Scotland.  Personally I prefer the name a bit better despite the fact that the flowers are MOST decidedly not blue but purple.  Points for accuracy there America. 

Quick morphological notes:  5 fused petals, 5 sepals, 8-10 stamens, superior ovary, which produces nectar at the base.  Base nectar.

So, what IS it though, let me tell ya.  It's a low growing plant (as pretty much all alpines are) and it is considered a dwarf shrub.  A member of the Ericaceae family or the heath family, so there you are.  It makes some fascinating nodding flowers in small clusters.  The word adorable comes to mind.  The leaves and stem almost remind of a prostrate Taxus (yew) or something.  Flowers emerge in June-August but I would imagine this is VERY variable depending on climate.  A note on hardiness here.  Hardy to USDA zone 2.  2!!  That's -40 to -50F.  That's chilly.

The plant self pollinates readily and produces tiny little seeds that travel with the wind.  Said seed can be sowed at about 20C and should germinate in 3 months.  Have some patience.  

USDA lists the plant as occurring in the states only in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.  Maine is beautiful, you should visit.

Fun part:  The pictures

 As the flowers mature they get pinker, the start purple though

Plant of the day is Arum megobrebi

Plant of the day is Arum megobrebi or ???

Why ???.  Because it is pretty new in the relative sense of plant discoveries.  Apparently it was discovered in 1990 (maybe a few years earlier even) but only fairly recently described in detail.  This is a pretty unique thing in the plant world these days, really.  And it is a fascinating looking plant.  It comes from the mountainous region dividing Georgia (the country) and Turkey.  The name is megobrebi derives from the Georgian word for friend, a nod to the friendship between the botanical gardens of Tblissi, Munich, and Bonn.

For a more detailed description than I could ever muster up, and for a fine example of how "plant language" works, check this link out.  You'll understand a few things, plenty of words in there I don't know yet as well.  But it gives you an idea.

http://araceae.e-monocot.org/taxonomy/term/5773

So, it is a member of the Araceae family or the Arum family...making it?  Yes, a type genus.  You can actually find a neat example of an arum with Arum italicum (which you can find in the trade round these parts).  This Arum is a little bit different though.

The thing to remember with these is that they flower in a really interesting way with a spathe (sheath the covers the spadix) and the spadix (the inflorescence or group of flowers).  You've seen it before, think of a peace lily.  This particular plant has a red tinged edge to the spathe and a white spathe.  There are actually separate male and female flowers that occur along the spadix, which I always find fascinating.  The flowers are supposedly foul smelling, yay.  As the flowers are pollinated and seed is set, the spathe will die back as the seed fully forms.  It looks interesting.

This particular arum grows from a rhizome (underground stem) and only sends up two leaves.  In terms of culture, it is safe to assume that it like rich woodland soil like many of its cousins.  Arum seeds can be VERY fickle to get to germinate and can take up to 2 years.  Sowing seed for Arum outside in the fall to expose it to fluctuations in temperature throughout the winter seems a common enough practice.

And now, dang near the only picture I could find for this.  It is still a rather new and undeveloped plant, enjoy.

Plant of the day is: Gentiana andrewsii or closed gentian

Plant of the day is: Gentiana andrewsii or closed gentian

So this plant is a native of Missouri which the USDA map shows as being kind of scattered across the counties in a pretty random fashion.  It is supposedly one of the more common Gentians and grows easily in moist woods and prefers full/part sun.

It is the type genus for the family Gentianaceae.  The family is named after King Gentius of ancient Illyria who allegedly discovered the medicinal value of the plant.

They have very striking dark purple/blue flowers clustered at the tips of stems.  The flowers themselves are very tightly closed, leading to the closed (bottle) gentian common name.  If what I read is to believed, only very strong bees can squeeze inside the corolla.

The leaves tend to be opposite farther down the stem but can be more whorled near the flowers.  The plant also has a very stout taproot so plant in a deep container if growing from seed.  The appreciate plenty of moisture and do not like their roots disturbed.  They can develop very slowing, taking between 2 to 7 years to reach flowering size (ouch).

Lastly, I'll mention that it is a late bloomer.  Blooms late summer into early fall so it can really add a nice shot of an unlikely color for the season in your garden.  My thoughts tend towards situating it with some goldenrod so you get the yellow/purple combo.

Looks like I'm not the only one with that thought.

Habit.