Monday, 7:00 AM. 61 degrees, wind WSW, calm. The sky is cloudless with some haze in the east. The barometer predicts rain but not likely until at least this evening. Another beautiful day.
The Rose of Sharon,
Hibiscus Syriacus, is an old-time-garden favorite shrub. It has typical Hibiscus flowers which look very much like hollyhocks. Plants with this type of flower are all in the Mallow family (
Malvaceae). The plant is a straggly shrub without much character, but the flowers are quite nice, and it has its place in historic landscapes and old fashioned gardens.
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| ROSE-OF-SHARON FLOWER |
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| SMARTWEED |
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| WHAT'S MY NAME? |
The genus
Polygonum is a large group of plants both native and introduced, in the knotweed family (
Polgonaceae). The general common name of these plants is smartweed. The stems have noticeable swollen joints at the leaf nodes, and the long spikes of flowers are usually pink. They are found in ditches, damp places and the shores of lakes, reservoirs and rivers. I will not try to identify them to the species level. They are weedy but rather attractive plants in flower. I remember sweeping vistas of the pink flowers of smartweed blooming on the mud flats of the big reservoirs of Nebraska during long summer droughts.
The interesting white moth with black markings and a black “false face” was found resting on a screen door in Ashland a few days ago. It looks like it should be associated with paper birch trees since it would be virtually invisible if it were on a birch tree trunk. I do not know what it is, and neither does naturalist friend Andy. Can any blog readers out there enlighten us?
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