I have two plants,and have tried getting cuttings to grow but to no avail.If they go to seed I could send you some, tho Ive heard they arent easy to start from seed.Ive also looked for the seeds myself and found one person selling them on Ebay.Just go to the site type in patchouli.If you want to email your address,and if I get any seeds off my plants, I will send you some.Email me direct.

Ditto. I had a whole 'Prairie in a pot' with Indian paintbrush and several other plants for it to parasitize, and it just disappeared after a couple of seasons. Its' hemiparasitic nature is a relatively new discovery, so there isn't a lot of information about which plants it prefers to parasitize, so maybe I didn't have the right ones - although, from what I've read, it isn't supposed to be very picky about what plants it parasitizes. It can technically live on its own because, having green leaves, it can photosynthesize. But it is more robust with a host. I suggest getting the seeds as opposed to the plant, and make sure the soil you plant it in is poor in nutrients. Lupines make a good host, and bind nitrogen to the soil, which might give the paintbrush a chlorophyll boost. The DNR is trying to reestablish paintbrush on a pimpled prairie near here (Mima Mounds State Park). They get plants from a little old lady who grows them in her back yard and they plant them all over the park. Each individual plant has an ID tag, and its location is marked on a map with the help of a GPS. The plants are monitored very closely. All I can say is, if the DNR is having so much trouble growing them, do not be discouraged if you try and fail, or have little success.

what is a hairy ball? LOL :)

See that's why I'm so confused, its neither of those other trees and the flowers it gets are exactly like the ones in this webpage, http://bnsullivanphoto.com/2008_06_01_archive.html So it has to be something in that family. there is another one recently planted down the street. Ours in an odd location and it gets much wider than tall, so we cut back a lot of branches so it grows up. I also think its newer in stores because we found this at some local place and there were no others and I've never seen it at any other store since then. They sold it as a shrub but its definitely a tree. Is there a way to upload pictures? I have some if that would help. And im a really amateur gardener and I'm not sure what a host plant is, if you could explain more how to do it, that would be great!