Tuesday, September 27, 2011

We're Overdue

Last night, I posted the following plant quiz...

It's hard to believe we've let nearly three months go by without a plant quiz!  Try your luck at this one...


It didn't take long to get an answer.  At work today, Abby asked me if this was Polymnia canadensis, and Keith also guessed Polymnia canadensis.  Both are correct.

A  more typical leaf

Polymnia canadensis is known from damp, shaded areas with calcareous soils throughout the eastern half of North America.

Flower heads

Nice job, Abby and Keith!

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Penthorum... dissectum? (Revisited)

If you are a regular follower of this blog, you may remember my post about an odd Penthorum sedoides individual that I saw at a mitigation wetland in Lake County, Indiana about a year ago (http://getyourbotanyon.blogspot.com/2010/09/penthorum-dissectum.html).  Last year, the plant that I saw wasn't flowering.  This year, just after telling Abby Lima about the odd Penthorum I had seen the previous year at the site, we found a Penthorum sedoides plant with deeply lobed leaves that had two aboveground stems.  This year, though, both stems were flowering.  I apologize for the poor photo quality, but it was cloudy and raining when we saw the plant, and I only had my work camera with me.


I collected the aboveground portion of the more mature stem to submit to the herbarium at Morton Arboretum (MOR), and only after making the collection did I think to take a photo.  The inflorescences on the other stem were narrower with flowers spread more loosely than on typical Penthorum sedoides.  I made a collection of a typical Penthorum sedoides plant that was growing very close to this plant, and I plan to look at the two more closely this winter (before submitting to MOR) to see if I can find any other differences.  Unfortunately, this is the only Penthorum sedoides individual with deeply lobed leaves that we saw at the site.  I haven't been able to find any named forms of the species, so maybe this is just a mutant, and I was lucky enough to happen upon the same plant with this mutant characteristic two years in a row.