Sunday, July 26, 2009

More Echinacea Info

Is this a Princess or a Prince or both?



From the Echinacea Project at University of Minnesota
(Page down to Heading: "Style Persistence")
In Echinacea, each morning a row of anthers (male reproductive parts) emerges, bearing pollen. This row of anthers will become a row of styles by the next morning and a new row of anthers will open, moving upwards from the base of the head. Styles persist until they receive compatible pollen, after which they shrivel up. Thus style persistence is used as a measure of pollen limitation and can provide information about patterns of reproduction and pollen movement within populations of Echinacea.

There's a few photos at the site to illustrate this point.
Can see this process on some of my coneflower pics here.

ndsu
Common Name: Black samson, Purple coneflower, Comb flower
Species: Echinacea angustifolia DC.
Synonym: Echinacea pallida Nutt. var. angustifolia (DC.) Cronq.
Family: Asteraceae - Sunflower Family
(I didn't know about the Black samson name.)

plants.usda.gov
Search for:
Echinacea pallida

Click on Classification:
Family Asteraceae – Aster family
Genus Echinacea Moench – purple coneflower P
Species Echinacea angustifolia DC. – blacksamson echinacea P
9 Species and 13 accepted taxa



So...I found out why the goldfinches are suddenly so active in the field:

gardenguides.com
Gophers and moles can be a problem eating the roots.
Goldfinches love the Echinacea seed crop and can clear out all the seed in a few days.

NOTE: This is word for word from a document at plants.usda.gov.
Direct link to the doc filetype here.

How to propagate:
plantandsoil
OR
plantandsoil
keyword: 1070307519

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