Friday Fabulous Flower - Big and Blue

 

Somehow TPP missed a Friday.  Who knows how this happens but it did.  Fortunately there are a few reliable plants that flower in the late summer.  This plant moves around the garden a bit, but it's always around. Quite reliable, you just have to learn how to recognize the seedlings and leave a couple.  This is the great or big blue Lobelia (L. siphilitica), probably the easiest Lobelia to keep around your garden. And this part of the garden is fairly dry, although some field guides suggest it likes wet areas.  Don't know about the specific epithet, perhaps this species was thought to have a medicinal use, but no obvious connection.  There are supposedly two varieties here in Illinois, but TPP isn't sure he's ever a seen a difference.  

Friday Fabulous Flower - Big Blue

Late summer flowering is a good thing because not that many plants flower at this time, however this is an exception.  Generally TPP calls this the big blue lobelia because it is all three.  It is a pretty easy perennial to grow as well.  Any perennial garden should have this plant.  Lobelia siphilitica is the scientific name a reference to an old use of the plant to treat venereal disease, probably ineffectively. The flowers are not huge but they have that Lobelia blue color and the flowers are densely clustered on the spike so it makes quite a display.   This image was obtained from Mrs. Phactor's herb garden this morning.

Friday Fabulous Flower - Big and Blue

Here's one of the easiest and best looking of our late summer native plants, the big blue lobelia, Lobelia siphilitica.  No idea about why it bears this specific epithet, perhaps something based on the old doctrine of signatures?  Anyone else have an idea? 

Friday Fabulous Flower - It's big and blue

Bit of a celebration because internet is back after changing service providers so this is the 1st blog posting using the new tubes.  So far so good, things are working again. Last week's FFF post promised you another late summer flower to pair with the big white fragrant hosta. So here it is the big, blue lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica).  This plant is pretty easy to grow and the population we have is from seedings. It also flowers over a period of a couple of weeks so it provides some long lasting color, and it's a big plant so it makes its presence known. It used to have Lobelia cardinalis growing along with it, but the big red lobelia does not grow well for us. The specific epithet siphilitica is another one of those old medicinal plant names, but it is also a rather toxic plant, so this is not a smart way to treat your VD. Our glasshouse has Euphorbia antisiphilitica, so maybe this lobelia gives you the disease?  Hard to interpret.