Tag: dayflower

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06/11/2023 roots

Unless you’re taking a herbarium specimen or moving stuff in the garden, we often don’t see how deep some native plant roots are. Today I helped two friends rescue plants from a remnant prairie that is about to be dozed and built on. (We dug with permission.)

A Winecup had the taproot I’ve read about but it was concentrated near the surface. This seems likely to live.
I figured this big milkweed has a very deep root so we didn’t try it.
Briar sat in the shade of encroaching cedar trees and helped check the reference book.
A cute hopper insect!
The Pediomelium/Psoralea type legume had a long thin root. The end broke so we shall see if it lives.
Scarlet pea had a very long root. Again we’ll see how it grows!

Spiderworts, native perennial dayflower, an all yellow Gaillardia, fleabane, western horse nettle, and Heterotheca (I think?) all came up easily with a sharpshooter shovel. Little bluestem has very deep roots but I think they are supposed to be okay to divide. Fern acacia (I think??) had a longer root (over a foot for a 6” tall plant) that may have broken.

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05/19/2023 pretty flowers, mystery solved, and babies

The first of our Ohio Spiderworts from prairie moon to bloom! (That’s a dayflower leaf under it in case that’s confusing.)
Turns out the mystery plant in with the Venus looking glass is a second kind of Venus looking glass! It just has narrower leaves. Both have milky sap.
Last year’s plant (it might have lived two years? I’m not sure)
Bigger baby
Tiny babies
More babies
Even more babies
The juniper leaf in the driveway. I have gotten it to sprout in small pots but it never stays alive. Cuttings ok too but I think it needs to be able to put down a long root. However, they sure love this one crack in the driveway.
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Dayflower identification redux

Last summer I made an attempt at identifying the dayflowers (Commelina species) in our yard and the only ones I found were the invasive, human-introduced Commelina communis. However, Abby gave us some native Commelina erecta and this year we noticed some of the dayflowers had thinner leaves like on the ones she gave us. So I decided to take a look again.

This is the invasive and human-introduced Commelina communis. The spathe is the green envelope that surrounds the flower. On this one, on the back edge is opens all the way down to the connecting stem.
This is one of the native Commelina erecta. This is not one that Abby brought us but hers looked like this too. Here, you can see the spathe is not open down to the stem. Instead it’s like a folded piece of paper, continuous, on the back side that goes to the stem.

It seems like for our yard, the broad vs narrow leaves are pretty indicative. So we’re going to continue pulling the broad leaved invasive ones. The Flora of North Central Texas indicates the native C. erecta has three varieties and one is narrow leaved, so the leaves probably don’t work in all regions. Once some of the dayflowers go to seed I will check to make sure they also have the smooth seeds that C. erecta has. I’m pleased to see we have more of the native species than I expected.

Even though the two species look very similar, the native species will have existing ecological and evolutionary relationships with the other plants and animals and microbes here. The human-introduced species may or may not have those. To be a good neighbor, I want to make sure our yard provides maximal food and shelter to local species, which means keeping more plants with those existing relationships.

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05/27/2023 backyard before and after

All the pulled invasive dayflowers and bermudagrass was piling up on the path by the mini prairie.
Since we had guests coming this evening for an outdoor meal I swept everything and pulled up some of the endless maple seedlings that were sprouting too. This shows off the tepary beans starting to climb the trellis too!
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04/16/2023 new Solomon’s seal

Today while pulling invasive introduced dayflower I ran across a little baby Solomon’s seal! I am holding a dayflower next to it for comparison.
Paula also found a new pair of Solomon’s seals just south of the red oak on April 11.
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09/22/2022 afternoon after work

The backyard sunflowers are quite magnificent at this point.
I don’t see any in this picture, but I saw several bumblebees up on the flowers.
The Salvia azurea are really doing well.
I have a new bunch of Indiangrass sprouting and blooming!
The little bluestem is blooming too. This clump has gotten quite happy in its second or third year now.
Jeanne, Abby, and Mom have been kindly helping me over text to confirm my accidental imports of non native and invasive King Ranch bluestem or “KR grass”. As they bloom and get identified, I have been pulling them.
I’m also continuing to work on pulling the annual, invasive Commelina communis. Unlike the native perennial dayflower, its roots are very shallow.
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09/05/2022 new dayflower!

Abby has found the perennial and native dayflower in her yard and kindly shared some. It has very different roots than the non native annual one!
Earlier in the day, Shackleton supervised while Paula watered baby cacti.
Careful pouring to wet the soil around the babies.
“What is this fuss? Who opened my curtain??”
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07/17/2022 finally dealt with identifying dayflowers

The seeds are rugose. This means rough. Commelina erecta, the native species, has mostly smooth seeds. C. diffusa and C. communis have rugose seeds.
The “spathe” is the part that enfolds the flower. In C. communis the veins are slightly darker, which I believe matches this.
The tiny third petal in front is white. Apparently it’s blue in C. diffusa.

All this to say, after keying out with the NC TX flower, I am disappointed to find my yard full of dayflowers appears to be full of the invasive, non-native version.