Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Plant Identification => Plant Identification Questions and Answers => Topic started by: Claire Cockcroft on November 24, 2014, 05:42:11 PM
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I took this photo in Betty Lowry's garden a few years ago. It had a tidy shape, narrow leaves, and lots of flowers. Can anyone help with the identification, please? Thank you.
...Claire
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I think that might be G. repens
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I think it is G. meridionalis - repens spreads very widely, and at least in our garden only flowers really sparsely. They benefit from a hot position, and rock to capture and radiate heat, to flower well, and are great plants when they do!
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Oh dear, my confusion spreads! G. bellidifolia is a synonym of G. meridionalis isn't it? Getting that muddled with the one with a spoon-shaped leaf with a distinct pedicel -is that G. incanescens ? :-\ Though I think of bellidifolia having slimmer leaves. Also, your plant, Tim, has rounded ends to the leaves while the plant in Claire's photo has more acutely pointed leaves....... ???
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All this tends to show that botany is not such an exact science and plants often intergrade more than we would like them to! It interests me that just at the point we pin down what a plant is also the point at which confusion begins. The best estimate is to grow a whole range of plants yourself and compare and contrast form, provenance and the botanical literature - but it is also nice to garden with them too :). I am quite keen on growing these - especially the smaller less 'weedy' species - and the best article I have found is by Prof. O. Schwarz (AGS Bulletin Vol. 35, p.305, 1967), which includes a key to the species. This gives G. meridionalis as having 'Runners only overground. Leaf-blades oblanceolate to obovate, acute to cuspidate', which indicates quite a bit of variation. Here is a good project for more investigation - will report back next year :D (Schwarz by the way says that: 'When I first came across the Globe-Daisies in the wild I little thought that the genus would become the subject of my studies over a period of nearly a quarter of a century') !