How are you at identifying liatris varities?

9 years ago

I wanted to see what was blooming in a nearby property that has never been developed. It's too rocky and rugged near our street and there is a flood plain and creek at the back. A developer owns the part near me and he wanted to get access from another street but the county wouldn't agree. Great for the neighboring kids and those of us who like to hike just a little, but no so good for the builder's investment.

After the cooling rain this evening, I walked along the road easement and snapped these pictures of a blooming liatris. I know it's not Liatris mucronata because I have that and it's no where close to blooming.

What is really unusual here is that there seems to be two distinct types of blooms on some of the plants.

This first photo shows two plants. The one on the right has a bloom spike on a single stalk. (my mucronata has many stalks from a single plant) Next to the single bloom is a plant with many stalks and a ball type bloom on a single sepal. This one shows the true color of the blooms.

None of the plants with spike blooms seemed to have multiple stalks which made me think they might be punctata. But there were a lot of plants with the ball type bloom with multiple stalks which made me think scariosa. Like the next photo. (colors aren't true here and the next one. It was getting too dark)

But there were several plants like this next photo that look like a mixture of the spike flower stalks and the ball flower stalks.

I'm going back tomorrow when there is more light to see if there are any dots on the leaves.

Any ideas?

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Comments (10)

linda_tx8
9 years ago
Well, that looks like liatris, but I can't say which species. Some of them, you'd have to dig up the underground parts to ID it with certainty. The more multi-branched plants look like ironweeds of some kind.
TxMarti
Original Author
9 years ago
The flowers on the multi-branched do look a lot like ironweed, but the leaves are not like it at all. But the weird part is that some plants have both kinds of flowers. I was going to go back there and I didn't go walking last night.
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wantonamara Z8 CenTex
9 years ago
I agree with Linda. I think the multi headed ones are Vernonia lndheimeri or Lindheimer's Ironweed. I am not good at telling one Liatris from another.

Here is a link that might be useful: V. lindheimeri
TxMarti
Original Author
9 years ago
Hmmm, I think you are right. I think I need to go dig one up and see if there are two plants intertwined.
wantonamara Z8 CenTex
9 years ago
The leaves look like my lindheimer ironweed plant.
Xtal in Central TX, zone 8b
9 years ago
Sent you an email.
Xtal
TxMarti
Original Author
9 years ago
wantonamara, how aggressive is your ironweed? After reading about it in the Wasowski book, I'm afraid to let it go in my yard.

Xtal, sent back an email. Now I see where you live so will shoot you another this afternoon. I was just about to close the computer and walk out the door.
wantonamara Z8 CenTex
9 years ago
I find that V. lindheimerii to be not aggressive at all. It is in very alkaline dry limestone caliche based rubble. I can not speak how it will do in DFW. I have watched a clump for 30 years in Austin, East of the Balconis fault line /borderline of the Edwards Plateau. So it is barely (2 miles) into the Blackland prairie. It was on a rock outcropping coming out of clay on the edge of a old golf course, barely west of IH35. It was un irrigated and it stayed 1 clump forever. I noticed it was gone the last time I drove by. I think irrigation and rich soil makes it turn into a tiger. I came apron a gravel stream bank that was riddled with them . I brought a couple of them home. and here they stay one clump , un irrigated. So I think it is all on the conditions that you give it.
TxMarti
Original Author
9 years ago
I got a positive ID from the herbarium in Ft. Worth, and it is indeed Vernonia lindheimeri, or Wooly ironweed.
wantonamara Z8 CenTex
9 years ago
I just got in a silver leafed variety of V. lindheimeri var leucophylla (?) that grows in west Texas.