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.

Penthorum... dissectum?

Have a look at the plant in the photograph below. It appears to be Penthorum sedoides with highly dissected leaves. I couldn't find any named forms of P. sedoides with dissected leaves, so it must just be an abnormal individual. For more information on P. sedoides, click here.


This photograph was taken in a mitigation wetland in Lake County, Indiana. Has anyone seen anything like this?

What's This? Justin Knows!

I recently posted this photograph as a plant quiz...


It is difficult to post a quiz on this blog that lasts more than a day without an answer. Justin correctly identified the mystery seedling in the photograph above as Penthorum sedoides. Ditch Stonecrop, as it is commonly known, is native to wet meadows, marshes, ditches, and muddy shores throughout the eastern half of North America, and has been introduced in the Pacific Northwest. Once accepted as a member of the family Saxifragaceae, it seems that most authorities now place this interesting plant in the family Crassulaceae; some even put it the Penthoraceae. As this species matures, it produces greenish-white, inconspicuous flowers; the flowers develop into attractive reddish follicles with spreading beaks, shown below. Penthorum means "five-mark," a reference to the five-parted flowers, and sedoides means "resembling Sedum."

Nice work, Justin.