Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Plant Identification => Plant Identification Questions and Answers => Topic started by: Maggi Young on June 05, 2014, 12:39:58 PM
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I may have asked this before - but if I did I have forgotten any answers ::) :P
This is a good garden plant here in Aberdeen . My friend has grown it for years - it makes a low hummock of shrubby evergreen growth and flowers well from early May till about the end of June.
About 20 to 25 cms high at most.
It has a look of a sturdy penstemon or a mazus about it. The leaves have an almost "succulent" feel to them.
Leaves, toothed edges 75mm total length by 30mm wide
Flowers 40mm long , flattened lip 20mm. no "beard" Around 8 to 10 flowers per stem.
Help please.
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Could it be some sort of linearia? Flower shape looks similar.
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I don't know of any evergreen shrubby Linaria. :-\
This flower has no spur and the upper and lower lips are pretty much the same.
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I'd say it was a shrubby Penstemon. There are hybrids as well as species. I seem to remember they tended to be short lived or if they did grow into big plants they were untidy and sprawling. Fruticosus, scouleri and davidsonianum come to mind but there are others. Does Robert Nold still frequent the forum? I think he helped out some id's a while back.
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Could be a penstemon Roma....
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I think it's a Penstemon, especially from the incipient seed pods as well as the flowers and I think there are species with foliage like that. It's such a vast genus. Maybe Anne in New York state would know for sure, or Lori. Really nice anyway.
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No doubt at all to me that it's a penstemon. I have keys and can try to suggest species later.
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Thanks, Lori, that would be great.
Character is of creeping, clumping shrubby habit. Leaves are, as I said, almost succulent, they are "lushly leathery" if you get my drift? (You can tell I have a great grasp of the technical jargon, can't you? :) ) I am somewhat surprised by the lack of any beard in the flower - is that often the case with Penstemon?
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they are "lushly leathery" if you get my drift?
I believe the term is coriaceous Maggi. ;D
Geo
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A pure guess (and I never get any ID right) that might do until Lori is able to get back. Penstemon montanus var. montanus
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I believe the term is coriaceous Maggi. ;D
Geo
That would be the very word, George, thanks!
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Definitely seems to be a penstemon, hope Lori can key it for you.
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It would be lovely if Bob Nold would just pop in right about now and tell us what it is!
Anyway, I will try to figure it out...
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A pure guess (and I never get any ID right) that might do until Lori is able to get back. Penstemon montanus var. montanus
Well, it's often easier to say what it's not (which is still helpful)... The Lodewick key says P. montanus v. montanus has grey-green pubescent leaves. Other subspecies may be glabrous, but the cyme is usually 2-5 flowered, and they are herbaceous, so apparently not P. montanus then.
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The leaves in P. montanus are glandular-pubescent, and these look glabrous. Leaves are on the flowering stalk and no basal rosette. Var. idahoensis leaves are glaucous.
So, this is probably a hybrid.
Bob
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Thanks Friends - so it's Penstemon 'Darngoodgardenhybrid ' then ;D
The little stems I pulled to photograph are making roots in a jar of water so I'll be able to see how it grows a couple of hundred yards up the hill from its previous home.
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It looks a lot like a native species we have here in the states. Penstemon cardwellii. Similar habit, color, lip, and dentate pattern on the leaf margin.
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According to Bob Nold's book Penstemon cardwellii grows ".....to 60cm and as much as five times that in width.........."?
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I'm sure it could, but I've never seen it anywhere close to that size in the wild. In a garden, I could see that. The plant would have to be pretty old though to reach that kind of size. In the rock garden at my college they have a 10 year old specimen and it barely topped out at 10 cm tall and 30 cm wide.
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My friend's plant is around twenty five years old, I reckon. It doesn't go much above 25cms at flowering and the spread is around 170cm - would be more if it hadn't been cut back occasionally.
The leaves are quite big, bigger than any mentioned so I think it must be a hybrid to be so chunky.
Next mystery would be to work out where it was sourced from all those years ago - A search too far, I think!
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Anyone recognise this weed?
[attachimg=1]
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Anyone recognise this weed?
Thought for the day:
If you don't know what it is, how do you know it's a weed ?
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Petasites?
NZ megaherb?
cheers
fermi
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If you don't know what it is, how do you know it's a weed ?
It's in the wrong place (not in my garden, I might add).
Doesn't look right for Petasites, which tends to have heart shaped leaves.
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Going back to that penstemon Maggi, I'm just reading the two part bulletin article 'Penstemons: a gardeners guide June & Dec 1994 by Geoffrey Charlesworth who says 'you can grow 10 new penstemons every year for 20 years and not exhaust the genus!' And I think he's only talking about the N.American shrubby kind so there are a lot of them... And they've been popular for a long time, the article is 20 years old to start with...
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Oh yes, there are plenty of those Penstemons!
The late lamented, Yorkshire-bornhttp://www.bnargs.org/obitgeoffrey.pdf (http://www.bnargs.org/obitgeoffrey.pdf)Geoffrey Charlesworth (who died in 2008 in America, where he lived for many years) was, of course, a most excellent author who made a great impact.
Those articles you mention are in the AGS bulletin - what a pity they are not available online for a wider audience.
I remain curious, however, as to how my chum's hybrid got here to Aberdeen at that time - we know the history of the house ownership which yields no clue. ???
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Anyone recognise this weed?
Furry critter. Looks a lot like a seedling hollyhock (Alcea).
Geo
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Furry critter. Looks a lot like a seedling hollyhock (Alcea).
Geo
It does indeed - not a weed then, Anthony??? :D
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It's a very good article and I'm trying to read it carefully so I understand them a bit better. I read pt 2 first lol, then went to search for the first part. I've got a few penstemons, one in a sink that's not been touched since we came here 19 years ago now. I'd love to id it... I find them quite difficult on the whole, but perhaps because I haven't understood their requirements!
Agree Maggi, those journals should be on line. Such a shame...
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Not a hollyhock. The leaves are not symmetrical. I've grown hollyhocks and I've never seen leaves like these. The leaf veins should all originate from where the stem joins the leaf. I may be wrong. Also, the gardener would know if there were hollyhocks about and would put it down to a stray seedling.
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Is it a mallow, Malva sp.?
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Same as hollyhock in leaf structure.
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Can it be Penstemon serrulatum? At least the plant is similar to what I grow with this name.
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Can it be Penstemon serrulatum? At least the plant is similar to what I grow with this name.
Hello Oleg, I see what you mean - there are some similarities.
P. serrulatum seems to have a more upright growth and the flower has a pronunced tri-lobed lower lip, which my friend's plant does not have.
I hope you have a great summer!
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Your plant looks a lot my seedlings of the white currant Anthony but you'd be able to tell from the scent of the foliage if it were a currant - of almost any kind.
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Could it be a Geum sp.?
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Could it be a Geum?
(Attachment Link)
My reading of the scale of the leaves would make it a monster Geum, if that were to be so...... :-\
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Doesn't look like a Geum to me. Could it be Ye Olde-fashioned Anemone japonica by any chance?
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Time will tell, if the gardener (who lives in Invercargill) lets it flower.
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Maggi's Penstemon looks very similar to P. fruticosus var. scouleri: http://biology.burke.washington.edu/herbarium/imagecollection.php?SciName=Penstemon%20fruticosus%20var.%20scouleri (http://biology.burke.washington.edu/herbarium/imagecollection.php?SciName=Penstemon%20fruticosus%20var.%20scouleri)
If it's not this species, it must be in it's parentage?