Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Agrimonia

I had a chance to help Dr. Ruch and Dr. Torke for the day while they were doing a botanical inventory in Fayette County, Indiana. Two, small-flowered Agrimonies were blooming practically side-by-side, so it was a good opportunity to compare and contrast them. On the left is Agrimonia gryposepala and on the right is Agrimonia pubescens. The main difference is with the pubescence, although the flowers have a difference in size and the leaves are slightly different color and shape. Apparently, gryposepala means that the sepals are griffin-like. Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Wallroth must have had a good imagination.

2 comments:

Scott Namestnik said...

Interesting comparison, Ben. There are some good vegetative characters to distinguish between the two as well, such as the evenly pubescent undersides of the leaves on A. pubescens and the pubescence mostly on the veins in A. gryposepala, with tiny glands on the underside of the leaf surfaces. I thank Mr. Thomas for these, and most of the vegetative characters that I know.

ben said...

Thanks for the additional info, Scott.