Wednesday's Wildflower: Pineland Heliotrope

Heliotropium polyphyllum
Submitted by Cathy Beals, Palm Beach County Chapter 


Photo by Cathy Beals,  Palm Beach Gardens

The Pineland Heliotrope is a partly erect to prostrate perennial herb with hairy stems and numerous alternate leaves.  Even though the flowers are very small, they usually bloom in paired spikes, often with hundreds of brilliant yellow or white flowers at one time, making it obvious, even in small clusters along the side of a road or cultivated in your garden.

 This Florida native blooms year round in the Coastal areas from Flagler County South to the Keys and grows in a wide variety of inland counties in habitats including sandy coasts, prairies, flatwoods, and rocky pinelands.  It is sometimes seen on the drier, plant side of swampy areas (on the sunny edges) where there has been some disturbance, such as the road between the canal and the wetlands at Sandhill Crane Access Park in Palm Beach Gardens where this picture was taken.
Close up of flower: Photo by Donna Bollenbach. 

 Cathy Beals is a member of the Palm Beach County Chapter of FNPS and has served on the Board as secretary for five years and as a Director for two years.

Other Links: 
FNPS: Heliotropium polyphyllum
IRC Natives For Your Neighborhood: Pineland Heliotrope
USF Plant Atlas: Listed under Euploca polyphylla

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Florida Native Azaleas

Image
Piedmont Azalea, Rhododendron canescens. Photo by Lilly Anderson-Messec By Lilly Anderson-Messec While growing up in North Florida, I began to recognize the arrival of spring by the boisterous show of white, pink, and fuchsia blooms of azalea shrubs. The house I grew up in had large, mature azalea hedges with a variety of different colors and forms. Every spring, my mom would bring in vases full of them and my dad loved to point out the showy shrubs as we drove through town. I suppose I assumed these plants were native, but most likely I never gave it a thought. I didn’t differentiate a native plant from a non-native one because I didn’t yet know the importance of native plants as the basis of our functioning ecosystems. I was so surprised when I learned the azaleas I was so familiar with (Rhododendron indicum) are actually transplants from Asia! They are favored by the horticultural industry for their fast, vigorous, and dense growth of evergreen leaves and large, showy blooms. Curio...
Read more

Wednesday's Wildflower:Spanish Needle

Image
Spanish Needle, Bidens Alba Submitted by Donna Bollenbach, Suncoast Chapter Biden's alba , all photos by Donna Bollenbach Nothing attracts more butterflies and bees than a simple white flower called Bidens alba . Also called Romerillo, Beggar’s Tick, Spanish Needle or Monkey’s Lice, this Florida native wildflower is the third most reliable source of nectar for pollinators in our state. There would be many starving bees and butterflies if not for the Bidens family of flowers. More so, Bidens alba and its sister plant, Bidens pilosa , are both edible and have medicinal value. Yet, many gardeners have a love/hate relationship the plant, and some even consider it a pesky weed. Why?
Read more

Paradise Tree: Beautiful and Useful

Image
"The native Paradise tree is more useful than Google, and easy to grow." And how could any blogger resist leading off with this intriguing quote from the Key West Garden Club? I am a Master Gardener and a Master Naturalist, but I only know so much; so I always check out  statistics from experts before posting information about plants. I have a beautiful Paradise tree in my yard, it came from the raffle table at my chapter's program night about six years ago.   Paradise tree                Simarouba glauca For the first six years the little tree had a perfect, closed, cone shape; but just this summer I was astounded one morning to walk out and notice that my tree had changed. The canopy had begun to open up, there were open spaces between the layers of branches. It seemed to happen overnight. Proving again that a garden is constantly in motion, which is one of the fascinating things about o...
Read more