Field of Science

Friday Fabulous Flower - Gooseneck loosestrife


The Phactors are on their way to the Botany 2017 annual meetings in Ft. Worth TX. This means crossing OK as quickly as possible.  Right now, a 12 hr day driving finds us somewhere in south central OK fed better than we expected (an Italian steakhouse?) and recovering with road trip margaritas (the recipe has been posted before), and nothing much to do but post a FFF.  Now TPP's gardening rules never to be broken involve one  rule you will violate only once unless you are a real slow learner - Never plant a loosestrife.  They can be beautiful devils, handsome but very invasive. Today's FFF is the gooseneck loosestrife (Lysimachia clethroides), which is elegantly handsome in flower, but it is still a hated invasive.  Technically our rule has not been violated; a previous owner planted it, maybe decades ago.  It occupies a shady hedgerow bed, but keeps trying to expand. Two other yellow flowered species were nuked when their true nature showed itself, but one still appears from tiny bits of root or rhizome.  Yikes! At any rate this one produces massive amounts of rhizome, and is tough to corral, and nearly impossible to totally remove.  But wow, that is some lovely inflorescence and they make a decent enough cut flower in late June.

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