Friday Fabulous Flower - nearly last, not the least

The growing season is winding down, but not over as yet.  So far if anything the growing season has been extended a week or so.  But both this FFF and next week's too never have flowered before October, unless conditions have some plant confused, e.g., a yellow azalea has flowered a bit here in September and of course some of our Corydalis has never actually stopped flowering.  Roses are also putting out a few new flowers and so is the Abeliophyllum.  Interestingly enough this late flowering plant is also one of the first plants to sprout in the spring, and so far it has never been frost damaged.  By now the clump of stems is 5-6 feet tall, and drooping if they haven't been staked.  The entire plant is quite toxic, so nothing eats it, (true for many buttercup family members) and helps account for it's common name of wolf bane.  The shape of the flower made by petalloid sepals provides another common name, monk's hood.  This is probably Aconitum napellus, the most commonly cultivated species .

So no herbvorous pests, no pruning, no transplanting (doesn't like being moved).  By October most gardeners have forgotten that they have this plant.  Ours grow well in light shade, and so are sort of in out-of-the-way corners of the gardens.  

Friday Fabulous Flower - Better late than never

To put the final touch on what has been a tough year, here's a Friday Fabulous Flower, only one day late, which have been in short supply the past few weeks.  What's interesting with monk's hood or wolf bane (Aconitum) is that while it is almost always the last species to flower each season, this year it waited until October 26th to flower.  In fact sometimes you almost forget monk's hood is around as it hangs out in the rear of the semi-shady margins of our gardens.  It's a great looking plant in flower and a member of the buttercup family.  Now that the season is really over, we'll have to recap the garden flowering log and see how flowering went this year overall. 

Friday Fabulous Flower - Wolfsbane

How appropriate that the fabulous flower featured close to Halloween should be wolfsbane (Aconitum uncinatum), also known as monkshood, a reference to the helmet-shaped upper perianth part (part of a petalloid calyx). These common names are applied generally to all the species, although some try to restrict wolfsbane to A. lycoctonum, a creamy flowered species of Europe. No question a plant as toxic as wolfsbane could keep werewolves at bay; this is not an edible plant, period. In terms of habit wolfsbane grows rather like a coarse larkspur, both being members of the buttercup family, but the wolfsbane prefers moist wooded areas, and so while the Phactor's estate has plenty of shade, things are a bit too dry for wolfsbane and it struggles in late summer. Nonetheless, wolfsbane/monkshood is a great addition to a perennial garden because its tough, generally trouble free, and best of all it flowers in October, the last of all our perennitals to bloom.