Talinum - my new plant find

Just a quick post about what looks to be a great plant. It's common name is "fame flower" and its species name is Talinum calycinum.

Take a look at Missouri Plants page for this plant. I'd never heard of it or seen it before I found it on the Critsite website's native plants list. Note that I've added Critsite to my favorite links. Critsite is just south of Kansas City in Belton. I hope to have time to check out their nursery this spring. They may be my most convenient resource in my search for plants to fill my new garden.

Funny that I didn't discover Talinum sooner. It was listed on the Missouri Wildflowers website which I've been browsing for months. It's probably because their plants list doesn't have photos, and I'm really a sucker for pretty pictures. If it's pretty, I'll click on it.

Anyway, Talinum calycinum is a little succulent plant that produces a deep rose flower atop a thin wisp of a stem. The flowers open late in the afternoon and from the photos I've seen it looks like a pretty pink cloud when a group is planted together. The plant appears to like rocky, dry places. Just the type of exposure that plants south and east of my yet-to-be-built pond will enjoy. I think some lucky plant will be adopted by me this summer.

One thing I discovered while browsing Critsite's list is that all the plants on the native plants list aren't exactly native. I started cross-referencing with the USDA Plants database to be sure if I was suspicious. If there was no reference to USFS MO Ecological Map on Critsite's page for the plant, that was a good indication to check USDA Plants for more information. In spite of that, I love browsing their list with all their great photos.

Happy frantic gardening between rain showers! It's a good thing I'm not afraid of mud :-)

Common Dittany - that's what it was and here's how I found it

In a previous post I included this image of a plant I saw on my trip to Mount Nebo State Park in Arkansas. It was a small plant with these delicate little lavender flowers that I thought might be a nice native plant addition to my garden. I didn't recognize it from my plant studies in college, so I've been keeping an eye out as I research native plants on various websites. Well, I finally found it while cross referencing the wildflowers available at Missouri Wildflower Nursery in Jefferson City. Here's a link to the plant profile on the USDA plants site http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=CUOR. I found another even better description on this site http://www.missouriplants.com/Blueopp/Cunila_origanoides_page.html. This plant has an added benefit of producing frost flowers in the fall. That would be interesting!

I've added links to the Missouri Wildflower Nursery, USDA's plant profile search, and the Missouri Plants site to my links list. These seem to be the sites I've used the most in my recent research. I've had literally hours of fun browsing these sites.