What's in Bloom
Bloom Highlights
Allium ‘Pink Pepper’
Pink Pepper Onion
This cultivar of ornamental onion is derived from Alliumsenescens, which is native to the temperate meadows, woodlands, and rocky slopes of the mountainous regions of central and northeastern Asia. Allium senescens is a perennial bulb that forms clumping colonies via rhizomatous underground growth. The bulbs and bulblets send out four to nine leaves in rosettes that form dense, clumping mounds of foliage. The green leaves are thin, flattened, and grass-like. In late summer, each clumping mass will produce up to 20 hollow, unbranching floral scapes, each terminating in a ball-like umbel of small, pinkish-lavender flowers. Each flower has six cupped, lanceolate tepals around six white stamens and three white, fused carpels that extend out from each flower beyond the tips of the tepals, giving the umbels a slight pincushion effect. This cultivar is noted for its compact size and globe of soft pink flowers. The genus name is the classical Latin name for garlic.
Duranta erecta ‘Silver Lining’
Silver Lining Sky Flower
This plant is found in the mountainous grasslands, woodlands, and meadows of Eastern Asia from the Himalayas in the west eastward to the Philippines and northward to historic Manchuria and Japan. This herbaceous perennial has an erect growth habit and forms small colonies though rhizomatous roots. At first, the plant produces a stout, wiry stem from which long, erect, blade-shaped leaves are produced in a fan-like manner sheathing the stem. The stem continues to grow through the leaves and terminates in a cyme inflorescence. Easch flower has six orange-yellow tepals that are distinctively spotted with red around three yellow stamens and pistils. After the flower fades, a capsule fruit develops, dries, and falls off, exposing a cluster of shiny black seeds that resemble a blackberry. The genus name is the name of the ancient Greek goddess of rainbows, as Iris flowers can come in a full range of colors. The specific epithet means “domesticated” in Latin, as it is commonly used as an ornamental plant in gardens.
Euphorbia corollata
Flowering Spurge
This plant is mildly toxic if consumed and its sap causes irritation. It is native to central and eastern North America from Minnesota and Ontario in the north southward to eastern Texas and Florida, where it is found in rocky and sandy soils of grasslands and open woodlands. This herbaceous perennial has an erect, clumping habit. This plant’s stems are light green, smooth, and only branch at the terminus of each stem. The stems bear leaves in whorls of three or more. The bluish-green leaves are linear to oblong with smooth margins. Each mature stem terminates in a large, open panicle of small flower clusters called cyathia. Each cluster (cyathium) consists of five white, petal-like bracts with green nectar glands subtending either an apetalous cluster of white stamens or an apetalous green pistil. The pistillate flowers produce capsule fruits that eject their seeds. The genus name honors Euphorbos, an ancient Greek physician who served at the court of King Juba II of Numidia and Mauretania. The specific epithet is Latin for “resembling a corolla” referring to the showy bracts of the cyathia structures.
Hibiscus dasycalyx
Neches River Rose Mallow
Hibiscus dasycalyx is listed as threatened on the Endangered Species Act of 1973. This plant is endemic to a few counties in Texas along the Neches, Angelina, and Trinity Rivers, where they are found in the associated flood plains and swamps. This multistemmed shrub has an open, erect, bushy habit with branching, smooth, coppery-brown stems that develop light brown bark. The dark green leaves are deeply lobed into a narrow T-shape with coarsely toothed margins and have reddish brown leaf stalks. The new year’s growth produces large, white flowers solitarily from leaf axils or in clusters from the termini of each branch. The flowers have five hairy, fused sepals; five overlapping, crepe-like white petals with dark pink bases; and a prominent staminal column fused to the style of the pistil. Each flower is subtended by red-tinged, hairy bracts. The genus name is the Latin and Greek word for mallow plants—particularly the related species Althaea officinalis (marsh mallow). The specific epithet comes from the Greek words dasys meaning “shaggy” or “thick with hairs” and kalux meaning “bud case” or “husk,” referring to the hairy sepals and bracts.
Lycoris squamigera
Pink Magic Lily
This plant is native to eastern China, Japan, and the Korean Peninsula, where it is found in meadows, open woodlands, and along streams. This perennial bulb sends out a rosette of strappy, grass-like leaves in the spring and early summer. These leaves die back to the ground by the height of summer. In late summer, each bulb sends out a single, unbranching, light green floral scape that terminates in a cluster of six to eight fragrant, pink flowers. The flowers are trumpet-shaped with six recurved tepals with six pink stamens and a dark pink pistil that bends upward. The genus was named after Marcus Antonius’s mistress whose name comes from Greek meaning “twilight.” The specific epithet is a compound of two Latin words, squama and gerere, meaning “scale” and “to carry,” referring to the small, iridescent scales on the petals.
Sanguisorba tenuifolia
Siberian Burnet
This plant is native to the meadows and stream banks of eastern China, Japan, and Russia. This herbaceous perennial has an erect growth habit with multiple stiff stems. The stems are green, smooth, and slightly ridged and bear leaves alternately. The leaves are pinnately compound with seven to 15 narrowly oblong leaflets with dentate margins. The lower leaves are arranged in a basal rosette and have the most leaflets, while the upper leaves have fewer, narrower leaflets. The upper stems are highly branched and terminate in dense spikes of deep reddish-purple, cup-shaped flowers. The flowers are apetalous with four showy sepals and four pink stamens around a pink pistil that extends out from the flowers, giving the spike a slightly fuzzy appearance. The genus name comes from the Latin words sanguis meaning “blood” and sorbeo meaning “to absorb,” in reference to the use of plants of this genus in folk medicines to stop bleeding. The specific epithet is Latin for “with slender leaves.”