Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Native plants. A change of pace.

I thought I'd throw you all a little curve ball, and start a thread about native plants. If you get a chance sometime, post a picture and brief description of a terrestrial plant that is found around your pond. Something special to your region and climate would be nice.

Here's my effort.

Compass plant. Silphium laciniatum

Pond Boss forum member Norm Kopecky provided my oldest daughter with a bag of seeds he collected. My daughter excitedly broadcast the seeds in an area where fill material was placed from construction of my Dad's pond. Norm told us that by the third year we would have some results.

He was right.

This is the third year and we have learned the following about this plant.

It is native to the tallgrass prarie. It can grow to nearly ten feet tall. Note the second picture--the leaves always align themselves in a north-south axis. We now have about fifty plants and every one of them was lined up this way. This plant can also live for 100 years. The resin of this plant was used as chewing gum by Native American children.

cool idea. i'll have to think about this a bit, i wouldnt know where to start, we have dozens of interesting native plants on the property and around the pond, to keep things brief i guess i'll have to pick one of my favorites....after doing so, i will check back in on this....

Bruce, thanks for the call. It was great hearing from you. There's no doubt about it, that's compass plant! For living things, everything is a trade off. In this case, the young plants have very big, wide leaves. That helps with photosynthesis but exposes the leaves to more ultraviolet radiation. To compensate, the plant orients its leaves north and south to reduce exposure to this radiation.

This seed came from a road ditch about 20 miles north of Bruce's place. He also has two other Silphiums, S. perfoliatum (cup plant) from just south of Schyler and S. integrifolium (rosinweed)from the road ditch about 1/2 miles from Bruce's place. The leaves of cup plant actually form a cup that holds water.

I'd always wondered about the color of male goldfinches. If you see one land on a sunflower or Silphium blosum, it blends in perfectly.

There are so many wonderful native plants growing in ditches, we just have to watch for them. They seldom transplant well because they have such deep roots. Seeds are the best way to go.

Oh come on Bruce and Norm. You took some oak leaves off a tree and stuck them in the ground!

Cecil, nothing gets by you does it?

This sounds fun and interesting. I will start looking for a good plant or two.

I don't have any pics from my place, but I do have a great seed source here in Texas: Native American Seed. They have a regional map that shows what was native. Surrounding states should be able to use it some. They have great native grass mixes that I am going to use to replace some areas of Johnsongrass, once I get it to finally die out. I did not want to stick a link on here since they are not an approved vendor here. I have used their seeds and mixes around the house and even got my neighborhood to seed an open area with a native prairie mix. If anybody from Texas posts an unusual native plant on here, they collect seed and work with the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center to save rare plants.