Our white mystery seeds from last week were indeed mysterious.
The flower is lovely. I thought it was a safflower, but it was growing “wild” at a park.
Here’s where seed identification comes in handy.
These are our mystery seeds from the plant above.
One possibility is that the seeds are from a plant closely related to safflower, Carthamus lanatus, which is known as woolly distaff thistle or saffron thistle. The plant does look like a thistle, and looks like it is covered with spider webs, which is how woolly distaff thistle is described.
(Photo by Steve Hurst @ USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database)
Those are woolly distaff thistle seeds. Hum, I don’t think so.
(Photo by Steve Hurst @ USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database)
How about Carthamus oxyacanthus or jeweled distaff thistle? Still don’t look quite right, although it is closer.
(Photograph by V.L.Bradley, Safflower images gallery)
These are safflower seeds, Carthamus tinctiorius. Don’t you think that’s matches the mystery seeds?
(Photograph by V.L.Bradley, Safflower images gallery) – Safflowers.
Our mystery plant.
People probably feed the birds at this park and some bird seed mixes contains safflower seeds. Mystery solved!
By the way, safflower is very drought tolerant and can be grown as a crop in Arizona.
Have you ever seen safflower growing?
