Our wildflowers – 10

DEFINITION OF TERMS:

  • KEYSTONE means they are listed by National Wildlife Federation as core plants for a wildlife garden in my ecoregion (Ecoregion 8).
  • NOT QUITE NATIVE means they are slightly out of range as determined by GoBotany and NY Flora Atlas.
  • Otherwise the plant is native to NYS or to the area noted.

Sharp-lobed hepatica (Hepatica acutiloba Syn: Hepatica nobilis var. acuta)

Sharp-lobed hepatica

Hepatica is liver’s namesake — in other words, the leaves look like a three-lobed liver, whose Greek name is “hepar.”

It’s a charming little plant, but I’ve had a hard time keeping track of where it is. It seems to be hanging in there, though not spreading.

Alumroot (Heuchera americana)

Heuchera

Alumroot is also called coral bells, but in this variety the “bells” aren’t coral, but rather whitish. Though the flowers are small, bees (especially small bees) love it!

The foliage is very attractive, too.

Since it spreads horizontally, not vertically, it makes a good groundcover.

  • Learn more:

PACIFIC NW NATIVE: Alumroot (Heuchera micrantha ‘Palace Purple’)

Heuchera Palace Purple

This is one of those plants that I got at a big box store many years ago. Anything native to this continent (or probably where they have their stores) gets a “Native” label.

I’ve since learned to do my research first (or just patronize real native plant nurseries).

Common rose mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos)

Hibiscus moscheutos plant

It’s hard to believe that this exotic-looking plant is a native plant. It looks like a shrub, but it’s herbaceous and dies down completely each year. Not only that, but it waits and waits to show any sign of life in the spring. Once it gets started, though, it shoots right up and is covered with flowers.

Hibiscus moscheutos flower

The individual flowers are huge and very showy.

One year, it was attacked by the hibiscus sawfly larvae but it survived.

This is a host plant for the gray hairstreak butterfly.

According to GoBotany, “The rose mallow bee (Ptilothrix bombiformis) is oligolectic on swamp rose-mallow (i.e., it pollinates this species and only a few others).”

Wildlife: Hummingbirds

Swamp rose Mallow (Hibiscus palustris)

Hibiscus palustris

The Wildflower Center includes Rose mallow (H. palustris) as a synonym for H. moscheutos, but many plant catalogs include this as a separate species. At any rate, we enjoy having this variation — a beautiful shade of pink.

Both of these hibiscus reseed, so we’ve found some volunteers to plant elsewhere around the yard.

Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis)

Goldenseal flowers
Goldenseal flowers ©Janet Allen
Goldenseal berries
Goldenseal berries ©Janet Allen

The flower looks like someone tossed a flower into the cup of the leaf, but it’s actually growing there. It develops into a red berry, which also looks like it was just tossed onto the leaf.

Jewelweeds (Impatiens sp.)

Cleistogamous jewelweed bud

Jewelweed has two kinds of flowers: the ones that we recognize as flowers (like the pale jewelweed flower the bumblebee is pollinating), but also ones that don’t open up with petals, known as cleistogamous flowers — the small green “buds” at the top.

These are self-pollinated and just fall to the ground as a kind of insurance policy for the plant.

Spotted Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis)

Jewelweed - orange

Jewelweed is the native form of the common bedding impatiens — except that this native is an excellent habitat plant as opposed to the bedding plants that simply decorate yards.

Another common name for this plant is “touch-me-not”.

Jewelweed seedpod

When the seedpods are ripe, it’s fun to touch them and watch them spray their seeds far and wide. This is why jewelweeds have another common name: touch-me-not.

It’s a very effective way for a plant to reproduce, and the evidence is all over our yard. Fortunately, they’re very easy to pull up since their root systems are very shallow.

Want to grow these from seed? Be patient! Jewelweed seeds require “double dormancy.” In other words, they must spend two consecutive winters in the ground in order for the seed to break dormancy.

Wildlife: Birds, hummingbirds, butterflies
** SPECIAL VALUE TO BUMBLE BEES **

Yellow Jewelweed (Impatiens pallida)

I finally managed to grow a yellow jewelweed. At least so far, the flowers seem to be larger than those of the orange touch-me-not variety. It’s a lovely shade of yellow, and I hope it reseeds itself enough that I don’t happen to pull all of it out! I’ll try to catch some of its seeds so I can be more deliberate in where I plant it until it is roughly half of my jewelweeds.

Pale jewelweed

I wanted to propagate more of the yellow jewelweed, but jewelweeds come up in such abundance, I was in the habit of pulling up dozens at a time when they were small — i.e. before they flowered. So how would I know whether I was pulling up the precious few of the yellow jewelweeds?

I started putting orange tagging tape on the stems of the yellow jewelweeds so I wouldn’t pull them up and also so I could grab the seeds when they were ready. That orange tagging tape sure was ugly!

Then I noticed that the stems of yellow jewelweed and spotted jewelweed were different. The yellow jewelweed stems are reddish and the spotted jewelweed stems are whitish. Good-bye tagging tape!

** SPECIAL VALUE TO BUMBLE BEES **