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Atypical Natives

18 years ago

Does anyone have a native plant that is outside the bounds of what would be considered typical for that species? For instance, the color of a flower or berry is not the usual color for that species. These atypical plants may be expressing a recessive gene or mutation. I would be interestng in reading what you have. Thanks.

jrmars

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Comments (15)

BabyHelpful
18 years ago
My mother in FL just discovered a naturally occuring variegated Devil's Walking Stick in her yard. It has irregular patches and streaks of creamy white on the leaves. Very neat.
Treedoc66
18 years ago
A friend just mailed me a glaucous leafed form of Kalmia angustifolia. I also grow a prostrate form of Cyrilla racemeflora.
I have heard of white flowering Mertensia being available.
There are probably lots of unusual variants out there yet to be offered.

Rx
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I'm a native Floridian, too, and to me, I see mostly the same types of changes we've always had. In other words, while the "normal" predictions would be dry winters/springs and rainy summer/fall afternoons, I've also seen years where it was all turned upside down. And I've seen those crazy years throughout my 63 years here. Also, we have NOT had a rainy summer here in the Sanford area at all. We have had the driest June and early July I can remember, with rains only just starting up again about 3 weeks ago. And barring this past week, no all day rains at all. Yesterday, I went to Gainesville, and it rained all day up there, but I came home to find it had only sprinkled here for a short time in the afternoon, and that was all. I guess what I'm saying is that 1) there have always been years when the weather deviated from what's considered "typical" in Florida and 2) it isn't deviating from that typical type of weather in all areas of the state, even this year. This does not mean I don't think weather patterns as a whole are changing, because I do. Just that Florida has always been a land of alternating drought and monsoon, and it still seems that way to me, even though my area has had way more drought and very little monsoon in 2007. Marcia
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Larry, I love the photo. Our deer aren't as thin as yours, but they were that thin, or even worse, last year. Yesterday when Tim came home from getting a haircut he came in with a bag of deer corn and we put some out for the deer this morning. I put the deer corn right by the back compost pile near the deer trail and the deer were there eating it 10 minutes later. It was the same herd that I described in the first post on this thread. They didn't come until about 7:45 a.m. Something is scaring the deer and rabbits because they are becoming very scarce in the evenings, and don't come out in the mornings until well after sunrise. This is a change in their pattern that has occurred within the last week. Yellow Cat, who was a feral cat for a decade before he settled into our place, adopted us and retired from being wild and self-sufficient won't even leave my side right now, and would stay inside the house 24/7 now if I'd let him. When he starts hiding out inside like that, or sticking to me like glue outdoors, that's another sign the predators are getting too close to the house. I haven't seen any or heard any, but we had a coyote hanging around a couple of months ago. Likely it is a coyote that's scaring them. Susan, I've never seen native passionvine on our land nor have I ever seen it anywhere in Love County. It might grow down in the wild river bottom areas, but we've been down there on fires and on drowning searches/recoveries and I've never seen it there either. Remember that we're more of a grassland than woodland type ecoregion, although there are some stretches of woods along the river and along creekbanks. I wish we had native passionvine here. We do always have gulf frits, though, so there's got to be passionvine someplace. My guess would be it is more in the eastern part of our county because the soils there are better and there's more woodlands along the river. I've seen giant, black and spicebush swallowtails this summer, but not very many of any of them. Usually they are as thick as flies, so I really miss having the usual hordes of butterflies around. Carol, That sounds like a great way to shade your pepper plants. As hot and dry as y'all are there, I know they must really appreciate that shade. My peppers wilted a couple of days in June when rain hadn't fallen and we were over 100 degrees but haven't wilted since then. They do get shade from the pecan tree beginning between 2 and 3 p.m. and that seems to be helping keep them happier this year than they were last year. Dawn
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>>the species at risk in the wild should be preserved within the general locality in which they are endangered as the genotypes and the associated genetic variability is suited to that region I agree that it SHOULD be that way.... but having accepted the reality that plants often are not adequately protected in their native habitat (especially in third world countries.... but extinctions may occur even in some first world countries) I think that cultivating threatened plants is a legitimate means of protecting them, whether it's halfway around the world or not. What about the highlands of Peru and Bolivia? What about all those New Caledonian endemics that are still being whacked down and burned indiscriminately by landowners? How about your own Eucalyptus recurva which is known from only four wild plants... a bushfire could come along, the regrowth could be grazed and the plants could be lost. This plant is now being preserved at Currency Creek Arboretum but it could just as well have been lost forever if it had not been brought into cultivation, and something happened to the original plants. Plants are inevitably vulnerable in the wild, often due to human influence but sometimes not... so isn't it better if as many people as possible have them in their gardens? Wattleblossom... your example is just about foolish people who are trying to make a profit and do not really have a clue what they are talking about, not people responsibly collecting plants to preserve them. It is one thing to harvest trunks of relatively common D. antarctica (and C. australis) from the wild.... this is unnecessary as it is unlikely to go extinct no matter what anyone does. Nothing wrong with growing D. antarctica in England but personally I think it would be better if they were spore raised plants. Now if someone were to collect spore from a very rare species of treefern (rather than harvest a whole plant) and disseminate the plants to help preserve them... is there anything wrong with that? I don't think so. I also think that when possible a variety of genetic material should be used for each species cultivated.
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ahughes798
18 years ago
I had some variegated Dame's rocket this year. It looked cool. Then I pulled it up, LOL!
jcsgreenthumb
18 years ago
Hi,

I have blue flag Iris that throws out completely white blooms occasionally. Had two white ones last year.

Jeanne
scott_h
18 years ago
I have a small(about two feet tall) hackberry that was varigated last year. I'll have to head out back to see if it still is. I've heard that they may not hold the coloration as they mature.
sarahbn
18 years ago
Last year or the year before I had one white cardinal flower it was very unusual looking If a flower could be albino that's what I had. Sarah
fredsbog
18 years ago
I discovered a rasberry plant in my back woods that was variegated last season. I moved it up to the garden and sure enough it is (mostly) variegated again this year.
janet_e
18 years ago
In the Catskills last week, I came across some marsh blue violets (Viola cucullata) with variegated flowers (i.e., purple flowers irregularly streaked with white). Just a few plants had the variegated flowers in a large patch of marsh violets, the rest with the normal purple flowers.
steve_nj
18 years ago
Several years ago my wife discovered a heavily variegated Pokeweed (Phytolacca). The variegation largely propagates from seed provided no green pokes are nearby. Some plants are almost albino, but most have good vigor.
gottagarden
17 years ago
I have a goldenrod with yellow variegated foliage.
I have a dames rocket with variegated white foliage. Seems they would be valuable to someone. Very pretty.
ahughes798
17 years ago
Dame's rocket is not native, is invasive, and though it's very pretty and smells great...I'd pull it up, variegated or not. I've had the variegated Dame's rocket, too...and it gets pulled up just the same.
joepyeweed
17 years ago
There is the occaisional white flowered spiderwort that grows in a field across from my Mom's house.
huzzah
17 years ago
not native, but in a patch of vipers bugloss there is one plant that has very pale blue flowers.
I have one lobelia that has white flowers, but I am not certain of its heritage.
Loretta NJ Z6
17 years ago
a mostly variegated coneflower appeared this year.
Flowerkitty
17 years ago
I had cardinal flowers I bought at Walmarts that had burgundy leaves. I felt cheated when I learned cardinal flowers normally have green leaves. The flowers were typical scarlet. Unfortunately, it did not survive the winter, unlike the lobelia that landed in the same location by seed

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