For Your Garden - July 2012

Have you been meaning to add a few native plants to your garden? Now is the perfect time. Native plants provide beauty as well as food and shelter for wildlife. Native species are adapted to the Illinois climate. They require little or no watering and are resistant to drought, insects and most diseases. Because they are perennials, you can welcome their presence year after year.

hoary puccoon (Lithospermum canescens)
Photo © River Valley Photographic Resources, Ltd.

Hoary puccoon is a member of the Forget-Me-Not Family of plants, noted for their one-sided coil of flowers that unrolls and expands as the plant grows. Flowers develop in a cluster at the stem tip with each flower about one-half inch in diameter. Each flower has five flat lobes that extend from a tube. The flowers are orange or yellow and blooming occurs in late spring and early summer. The dark green leaves are arranged alternately on the stem. The plant may grow to 20 inches tall. Hoary puccoon grows in dry soil, including dry prairies, along roads and in open woods. It grows well in rocky soil.

Classification and taxonomy are based on Mohlenbrock, Robert H. 2014. Vascular flora of Illinois: A field guide. Fourth edition. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale. 536 pp.

​Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Lamiales
Family: Boraginaceae