Friday Fabulous Flowers - Mums the word

 Fall color basically comes in one of two forms: tree leaves and chrysanthemums.  Of all the seasonally correct flowers mums are one of TPP's favorites.  They come in so many bright colors, and so many different bloom forms, they are hard to resist. The modern non-hardy varieties can be grown to form a massive mound of flowers that last for a reasonable amount of time. They can be used to fill in fall garden beds with bright masses of color until a fatal freeze comes along. These are the non-hardy type so don't try to save them. This year has been a warm fall, so things have persisted; window box petunias are still in flower and it's October 28! Here's a garden bed from our "uptown" and it's just plain cheerful.

Know your genera - Lesson 4: Chrysanthemum

More good news! You know yet another scientific name of a plant: Chrysanthemum. But, it isn't the plant you think it is. Those darned taxonomists figured out that chrysanthemums (chryos- Greek for gold; anthemon - Greek for flower) did not form a natural group and various species have been segregated into about 10 different genera.

The familiar "florists' chrysanthemums" pictured here and so popular this time of year are now in the genus Dendranthema (dendro = woody, a reference to their woody annual stems). Like many other people, the Phactor learned to call the Shasta or ox-eye daisy Chrysanthemum lecanthemum, which is kind of fun to say, except it meant "goldflower-whiteflower". Leucanthemum (leuco = white) is their new genus. Other former chrysanthemums are the pyrethrum daisies (feverfew - long known as a remedy for fevers, and as a source of the insecticide of the same name) are now placed in Tanacetum. And what of the real chrysanthemums? Of the 300-400 species that used to be in this genus, now there are two, both annuals of the Mediterranean region.