#dwarf sweet william catchfly

[starfragment1979]

Before I got sick, I was very much an outdoorsy person, which is one reason that becoming housebound had been so hard for me. A week or two ago I was in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil and a dragonfly happened to zip past the window, and I realized with a start, holy shit, I have not seen a dragonfly all summer. Because I'm just not outside. Which just fucking kills me, it really does.

But before I got sick, I spent years and years trying to learn about the plants and bugs and birds and everything around me. The city I live in is full of trails and parks and wilderness, and there's a lot of nature within walking or biking or public transit distance from anywhere in the city, and I was out in it as often as possible, and god I just miss the outside world so much.

Anyway, a lot of that knowledge is still in my head, and a lot of my learning was focused on urban nature, because as someone who's never gotten their driver's license, that was all that was available to me most of the time. But there's still a lot of nature in the city! Even without going off into the trails and parks. You just need to know where to look for it.

The problem is that a lot of wildflower field guides focus on the rare and showy and ornate flowers--because they make for pretty pictures and people buy books with pretty pictures. But that means that the growing-through-cracks-in-the-sidewalk weeds are often harder to identify, even though those are the kind of wildflower that people are more likely to see every day, because they're written off as too common to be worthy of notice or because they grow in abandoned lots or along the overgrown edges of alleyways or some other unseemly location.

So my point is, at some point in the past two decades I had misidentified this little flower as deptford pink (Dianthus armeria) and the ID just stuck in my head. But when I was writing out the alt text for my last post I realized that was wrong, but I couldn't figure out what it actually was. And it bothered me that I couldn't figure it out, that there's this super common weedy flower that I've been calling wild pinks for years and they're not wild pinks but wtf are they and am I really so out of touch with the outside world that I can't figure this out etc etc etc spiraling into gloom.

But this morning during my daily morning bed flop, I brought a bunch of my wildflower books up with me and did some better research, and I did have to make one wobbly trip down the stairs and back outside to go touch the stems to make sure they're sticky, but now I have successfully (I think) ID'ed it as dwarf sweet william catchfly (scientific name is either Silene armeria or Atocion armeria).

And like it feels so good that I was able to figure this out, that I can still learn new things even when I'm stuck at home or in bed so much of the time and that I can still make new plant friends.

[jillraggett]

Plant of the Day

Friday 5 July 2024

The vivid pink flowers of Atocion armeria (bunch pink, dwarf French pink, limewort, Lobel's catchfly, mice pink, mock sweet william, sweet Sue, sweet William catchfly, none-so-pretty, wax plant) are popular in gardens and native to Europe. It has become established in parts of North America due to escaping cultivation.

Jill Raggett






[journiland]

I inventory my seeds. I am such a nerd. Just perhaps, I shouldn't buy any more flower seed? Especially since I've really just started appreciating flowers? (As a non-edible, I wasn't very interested in the past, but I'm much more so, now that I realize how valuable they are in attracting beneficials, stinking away pests, et cetera. And some are even edible.)

Peas/Beans

Green beauty tendril pea (a few)

Kitchen king bush bean

Contender (bush?) Bean

Heavyweight II bush bean

Royal burgundy (bush?) Bean

Radish (old)

Ruby queen beet (a few)

Golden globe turnip

Hi shi ko bunching onion

Carrot

Chantenay

Danvers half long x 3.5

Scarlet nantes (a few)

Cosmic purple

Tomato

Blue berries 2014

Gypsy 2014

Black vernissage

Isis candy 2014

Orange icicle 2014

Rutgers 2014

Chadwick cherry 2013

Ground cherry 2014

Mary's Niagara ground cherry

Lipstick pepper

Mini bells pepper 2014

Jimmy Nardello (older)

Ping tung eggplant 2014

Yellow wonder Strawberries

White scallop summer squash

Early summer crookneck summer squash

Rampicante (a few)

Rampicante (2014, saved by me, tons)

Waltham butternut

Small sugar pumpkin

Jack o lantern pumpkin

Hale's best jumbo cantaloupe

Hearts of gold cantaloupe

Golden crispy asian melon

Sugar baby watermelon

Anise hyssop

German chamomile

Cumin

Stevia

Thyme

Genovese basil x 2

Sweet basil x 2

Purple petra basil

Cinnamon basil

Chives x 3

Italian parsley x 2

Catnip

Wheatgrass

Catgrass (oat)

Dill (part of a postcard)

Roselle zinger hibiscus

Passion flower

Tom thumb lettuce

Grand rapids leaf lettuce

Mizuna 2010

White seeded pak choy

Bistro corn salad

New Zealand spinach 2014

Peppermint, Lilliputx2, fruit smoothie zinnia

Petite mix zinnia 2014

French dwarf double marigold + collected

Brightest brilliant rainbow quinoa

McKanna's giant Columbine + collected

Alaska mixed nasturtium, unknown nasturtium

4 o clock (4 seeds from MIL)

Pacific giant delphinium, unknown delphinium

Chinese lantern

Double mixed moss rose

Polka dot mix, tall double bachelor buttons

Clark's heavenly blue, grandpa ott's (older), and choice morning glory

Carmel hybrid sunflower + unknown sunflower

Summer pastels and red yarrow

Rainbow mix coleus

Cheerios bee friendly wildflower mix

White texas star

Save the bees flower mix (a bit left)

Tropical, regular, & butterfly milkweed

Balsam touch me not

Honesty plant

Sweet William

Butterfly hearts silene ameria catchfly

#seeds

[starfragment1979]

First time outside in like a week, just a wobbly little stumble around my overgrown jungle of a yard.

Cup plant, sunflower, chickies, monarda, yarrow, pinks and goldenrod.