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.
