What's in Bloom
Bloom Highlights
Adenium obesum
Desert Rose
This plant’s native range stretches across the semi-arid zone of Africa south of the Sahara Desert through the Sahel and into the Arabian Peninsula, where it is found in the rocky and sandy soils of open grasslands and open woodlands. It is a semi-succulent shrub with a disproportionately large, stout basal trunk with furrowed, light grey bark. The fleshy stems start unbranching before becoming highly branched near the top of the plant. The upper shoots produce radial rosettes of spirally arranged leaves. The glossy, medium-green leaves are leathery, simple, and oblanceolate to elliptical with smooth margins and white to light green veins. The shoots terminate in clusters of bright reddish-pink, tubular flowers. The flowers have a tubular calyx of five pointed sepals, a trumpet-shaped corolla of five semi-fused, overlapping petals, and ten stamens around two fused pistils. The genus name is Latin for “of Aden,” which used to be the capital of South Yemen, where this plant is native. The specific epithet is Latin for “fat or plump” in reference to the basal trunk.
Helenium autumnale ‘Butterpat’
Butterpat Sneezeweed
Helenium autumnale is native to much of temperate northern North America, from subarctic Canada southward through the mainland United States, where it is found in wet prairies, meadows, swamps, and marshes and along the banks of streams, lakes, and floodplains. This herbaceous perennial has an erect, clumping habit. The yellow-green winged stems are stiff, erect, and unbranching, producing dense foliage of alternately arranged sessile, simple leaves that are lanceolate to oblong with dentate margins. The stems terminate in large, open panicles that produce yellow, ball-shaped capitulum inflorescences. Each inflorescence has a dense central globe of tubular, star-like disc florets and a ring of seven to twenty wedge-shaped ray florets with three to five lobes that angle down and away from the disc florets. This cultivar is noted for its late-season bloom of large, bright yellow flowers. The genus name is said to honor Helen of Troy, as Helenium resembles a related genera native to the Mediterranean. The specific epithet refers to the autumn bloom time.
Heuchera villosa ‘Autumn Bride’
Autumn Bride Alumroot
Heuchera villosa’s native range spans the Ozark Plateau in the south and west through the Appalachian Mountains to upstate New York in the north and east, where it is found in rich, rocky soils of wooded slopes and in crevices of cliffs and rocky outcrops. It is a broad-leaved evergreen, and an herbaceous perennial that forms mounding clumps of foliage. Stout, pubescent stems produce a basal rosette of large, pubescent, palmatifid leaves with five to nine lobes and serrate margins from long, slender pubescent leaf stalks and can turn purply-burgundy after frost. From the leaf axils, tall, narrow, pubescent panicles are produced that bear small, bulbous flowers. The flowers have five fused, prominent, fuzzy green sepals, five white or pink inconspicuous petals, and five stamens and two pistils that extend beyond the apices of the sepals and petals. This cultivar is noted for its velvety, light green leaves; fuzzy, white flowers; and partial- to full-shade requirement. The genus name honors Dr. Johann Heinrich von Heucher, a German physician and botanist who helped found the Wittenberg Botanical Garden at the University of Wittenberg. The specific epithet is Latin for “with soft hairs.”
Molinia caerulea ssp. arundinacea ‘Dark Beauty’
Dark Beauty Tall Purple Moor Grass
Molinia caerulea ssp. arundinacea is native to Europe including the British Isles, from Spain in the west to the Caucasus in the east, where it is found in grasslands such as moors, heaths, fens, and bogs. It has an erect, mounding, foliar form with slender, erect, arching floral stalks. Stems form a dense mound of foliage by producing sheathing, linear green leaves that turn greenish-purple before turning golden yellow in autumn. The purple-tinged stems extend up a couple of feet above the foliage and terminate in large, open panicles of purple-tinged spikelets that quickly turn light golden-brown. This cultivar is noted for its dark green foliage and purply-brown panicles that turn golden in the autumn. The genus name honors Juan Ignacio Molina, who was a Chilean-Spanish Jesuit priest, naturalist, botanist, ornithologist, geographer, historian, translator, and linguist. The specific epithet is Latin for “dark blue,” describing the leaf and stem color, while the subspecific epithet is Latin for “reed-like,” in reference to the plant’s tall, slender form.
Isotoma axillaris ‘Gemini Blue’
Gemini Blue Isotoma
Isotoma axillaris is native to eastern Australia, where it is found in open woodlands, grasslands, and in moist crevices of rocky outcrops. Isotoma axillaris is an annual subshrub in the Chicago area. Its woody basal stems send out many highly branched tender stems that form upright mounds of foliage. The stems bear leaves in an alternate arrangement. The green leaves are narrowly elliptic with deeply serrate margins. The leaf axils produce long leaf stalks that terminate in a tubular, star-shaped flower. Each flower has a fused, cup-like calyx with five long, pointed sepals that reflex away from the flower. Five fused petals form a floral tube before they reflex back in a star-like fashion. The petals are yellow at their base and switch to bluish-mauve when the petals become distinct. The stamens and pistils extend just past the opening of the floral tube. This cultivar is noted for its finely cut leaves and large, solitary, lavender-blue flowers. The genus name is derived from the Greek words isos, meaning “equal,” and tomos, meaning “section,” in reference to the equal petals of the corolla. The specific epithet is Latin for “from the axil.”
Succisa pratensis
Devil’s Bit
This plant has a large native range spanning from Portugal, Morocco, and Algeria in the west throughout Europe and the Caucasus to Kazakhstan and central Siberian Russia in the east. It is found in open grasslands such as meadows, fens, marshes, and bogs as well as along the banks of rivers and streams, and in coastal areas and dunes. This herbaceous perennial forms large mounds of foliage. The upright, branching stems produce large, pubescent, glossy, ovate leaves with long leaf stalks, white midveins, and minutely serrate margins in a basal rosette of opposite pairs. From the upper leaf axils and the termini of the stems, long, erect, tomentose floral stalks are produced that terminate in domed capitula inflorescences. Each of these inflorescences is subtended by an involucre of pointed, strap-like phyllaries. Each capitulum is comprised of many densely packed bluish-purple flowers, each subtended by a single, awl-like bract. Each cup-like flower has five fused, inconspicuous sepals; five round petals fused at their bases; and five stamens with purply-pink anthers and two pistils that extend up and out of the floral cup. The genus name comes from the Latin word succidere, meaning “to cut off,” referring to the appearance of the truncated root system. The specific epithet means “from the meadow” in Latin.