Re: Plant ID - Pamper or Pull?
- To: perennials@mallorn.com
- Subject: Re: Plant ID - Pamper or Pull?
- From: P* E*
- Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 21:47:10 -0500
At 5:59 AM -0500 11/22/98, Meum71@aol.com wrote:
> There seems to be resistance to my ID. Thats Ok I have missd the mark many
> times.
Since I don't have a picture of my whole mystery plant I thought the
picture of the Barbarea vulgaris
http://www.rce.rutgers.edu/weeddocuments/YROCKET.HTM was a fairly close
representation of its growth habit.
> Well -- lets first rule out the "Winter Cress" Barbarea vulgaris, Two main
> reasons to reject this plant is. 1) It does not have leaflets but has lobed
> leaves. Two very different morphological features
Two of the leaves on my plant have some ever-so-slight hints of lobes.
However, they don't particularly resemble the one leaf of B. vulgaris
(lower center of picture) that is clearly lobed. The leaflets are also
a great deal larger in proportion to the terminal leaf than my plant.
> 2) Most populations of Barbarea is glabrous or without hairs-when
>they do have
> hairs they are very sparse.
The hairs on mine are not sparse at all but extremely short and are
much easier to feel than to see. I don't think it would photograph
showing any type of "shine" like the leaves of the B. vulgaris at the
Rutgers site.
> If you were to dig the plant up you would also see that it has a spreading
> root system while the Geum has a more or less tap root and spreading
>rhizomes.
It seems my curiousity has gotten the better of my sense. I just dug
the darned thing up and potted it. :) There are just a lot of plain
white fine roots, no tap root or rhizomes. Do seedlings have rhizomes?
The whole plant is still very small (6-1/2" spread, 2" tall).
> It is a true perennial that is spread by birds.
It's growing right by the front door against the base of a small
azalea. I've never seen any birds hanging out there but bumblebees are
nuts for the azalea flowers.
> The reddish/dark stems and leaves fit well into the Geum ID too.
Two stems don't appear to be red but all the others have red in varying
degrees. Also, the stems are flat on top and rounded on the bottom.
> The real key is the leaflets on your photo-This is a distinctive feature of
> many members of the ROSE family. Including Potentilla, Geum, Agrimonia,
> Sanguisorba,
My plant has no scent--even when I crushed a leaf. A comment about
Agrimonia at http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/a/agrim015.html
(no picture) reads, "The whole plant is deep green and covered with
soft hairs, and has a slightly aromatic scent; even the small root is
sweet scented, especially in spring."
I didn't find anything about Potentilla or Sanguisorba that would rule
those in or out.
I don't know enough about plant identification to even know what
information is important and what isn't, let alone the proper
terminology for descriptions. Thanks for all your help and the list of
possibles.
---
Peggy Enes (peggy@unicom.net) Zone 5/6 NE KS AHS Heat Zone 7
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