Category: Seed of the Week (Page 5 of 167)

Seed of the Week: Bachelor’s Buttons

Welcome back to Seed of the Week!

Our mystery seeds from two weeks ago were indeed from the common garden flower bachelor’s buttons, Centaurea cyanus.

bachelors buttons flowersThey may also be called cornflowers, although other kinds of plants may share that name.

Bachelor’s buttons were originally from Europe. They have been grown as an annual garden flower throughout the world and have naturalized in parts of North America and Australia. Ironically, the plant is declining in the wild in Europe.

bachelor-button-flower012

The flowers are commonly a lovely blue, although other shades are possible.

Nordens_flora_007_BlaÌŠklint(Botanical illustration by C.A.M. Lindman at Wikimedia)

 Have you ever grown bachelor’s buttons in your garden?

Mystery Seed of the Week 252

 

Unlike last week’s mystery seeds, these popular flowers are widespread.

mystery-seeds-252

We’ve had some similar-shaped seeds. Don’t they look like rockets with the exhaust flames shooting out behind? (The white object is a grain of rice added for scale.)

Do you recognize what plant these seeds are from? If you choose to, please leave a comment with your ideas.

Mystery Seed answers and new Mystery Seeds are posted on Tuesdays. Next week, however, we are having a special activity so the answers will be posted in two weeks.

Edit:  The answer is now posted.

Seed of the Week: Desert Rosemallow

Our fuzzy mystery seeds from last week apparently stumped everyone, probably because they are fairly rare and localized. They were from a desert rosemallow or Coulter’s hibiscus, Hibiscus coulteri.

desert-rosemallow-flower-025Desert rosemallow is a scraggly perennial shrub that reaches three to four feet high. Its most prominent feature is its beautiful cup-shaped yellow to cream-colored flowers.

mystery-seed-251-2The flowers produce unique hairy or sericeous seeds. It should not be surprising to learn that desert rosemallows are relatives of other plants with fiber-covered seeds, the cottons. The flowers resemble those of Thurber’s cotton and commercial cotton.

Desert-rosemallow-flower05

This is also a good plant to highlight during pollinator week because it attracts bees.

More photographs of desert rosemallow are available at the Native Plant Database and Firefly Forest.

Have you spotted any interesting seeds this week?

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