JKLoriously Floral

The time has come for another edition of Floral ABCs. This week, Terri’s Flower Hour #42 reaches the letters J, K, and L. I wasn’t sure I’d have an example for every letter. My photo archive and a quick internet search led me to a scientific name starting with the letter K — and once that one clicked into place, the rest came easier. One of these three plants was recently added to our front yard but hasn’t bloomed yet, so for that letter I’m working from an archive photo of an old favorite instead. Another has turned up here on the blog before, more than once. Can you identify all three before I give it away?

J is a plant I’ve admired in other gardens long before I thought to plant one myself. Its yellow flowers gather in tidy, stacked whorls up a felted, silvery-green stem, each bloom shaped like a small parrot’s beak catching the light. The whole plant looks dressed for a hillside somewhere much drier and much farther away than Central Texas — which, it turns out, is close to the truth.

K grows low and wide, its stems trailing flat across sandy, sun-baked ground instead of reaching up. The flowers are small, barely an inch (2.5 cm) across, but strikingly orchid-like — magenta sepals over fringed, oil-slicked petals that only a narrow set of specialist bees ever bother to visit. I couldn’t land on a common name for this one on my own; it was the scientific name that finally gave the game away.

L looks, at first glance, exactly like a thistle — spiny, deep purple, built like a tiny pineapple bristling in self-defense. It isn’t one, though not for lack of trying to convince you otherwise. This is the one that’s shown up on this blog before, and it stops me in my tracks every single time with that improbable shade of violet.

The Reveal

J is for Jerusalem Sage (Phlomis fruticosa), a Mediterranean shrub — not a true sage at all, despite the name, and not native to Texas. It typically reaches 3 to 4 feet (0.9 to 1.2 m) tall and wide, and it’s the one only recently added to our own front yard. Even so, it has adapted well to Central Texas — its taste for rocky, well-drained soil and full sun in its native Mediterranean hills translates easily to our own hot, dry conditions. This particular photo is an archive shot from Berry Springs Park & Preserve in Georgetown, Texas, taken before I ever planted one at home.

K is for Krameria lanceolata, the Trailing Ratany (also called Texas Ratany) — and, true to that second name, a Texas native. This one is a genuine oddity: it’s a root hemiparasite, tapping into the roots of neighboring plants for part of its nutrition even while photosynthesizing on its own. Its oil-producing petals are pollinated almost exclusively by bees in the genus Centris, which collect the oil to provision their larvae rather than gathering pollen or nectar. I photographed this one trailing across an open field in Pflugerville, Texas.

L is for Leavenworth’s Eryngo (Eryngium leavenworthii), also called False Purple Thistle — and another Texas native. Despite the look, it belongs to the carrot family, not the thistle family — its spines are just a very convincing disguise. The cone-shaped flower heads run about 2.5 inches (6 cm) long. This one was blooming in the gardens at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

Three letters, three plants with almost nothing in common — a Mediterranean shrub and two Texas natives: a ground-hugging parasite and a spiny impostor from the carrot family. I’m not sure what I’ll do when this challenge reaches Q, X, or Z, but I suppose Krameria taught me that a scientific name can bail me out when a common one won’t. Whether I was walking at Berry Springs Park & Preserve (Georgetown, TX), an open field in Pflugerville, Texas, or the gardens at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, one step in nature always leads to wonderful discoveries.

That is the story behind the shots. For more like this, enjoy these related stories: Berry Springs Park and Preserve, FlowerHour, Georgetown, Jerusalem Sage, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Leavenworth’s Eryngo, Macros, One Step, Pflugerville, Texas, Trailing Ratany, and Wildflowers. Until the next shoot, keep chasing the light and the wonders it reveals.

Posted for Terri’s Flower Hour #42.

Posted for Pepper’s One Step at a Time #21.

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Sources:

• Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center — Krameria lanceolata (Trailing Krameria) — https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=KRLA
• Native Plant Society of Texas — Krameria lanceolata — https://www.npsot.org/posts/native-plant/krameria-lanceolata/
• Wikipedia — Krameria lanceolata — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krameria_lanceolata
• Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center — Eryngium leavenworthii (Leavenworth’s Eryngo) — https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=erle11
• Native Plant Society of Texas — Eryngium leavenworthii — https://www.npsot.org/posts/native-plant/eryngium-leavenworthii/
• Missouri Botanical Garden, Plant Finder — Phlomis fruticosa (Jerusalem Sage) — https://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?taxonid=281499
• Texas SmartScape — Jerusalem Sage — https://www.txsmartscape.com/plant-search/jerusalem-sage