Viola striata (Cream Violet) on 4-29-22, #875-38.

Hello everyone! I hope this post finds you well. I haven’t posted for a while because I haven’t had a lot to say and I have been working on updates.

I started making initial updates on November 4 and finished on January 18. Ummm… 705 pages… But there is a catch. A lot of notes have accumulated on “the wildflower list” to make improvements (I call it tweaking) on various pages. There are A LOT of pages that still don’t have descriptions of the plant’s parts not to mention several drafts that have to be published. Heck, some wildflower species don’t even have drafts! I know there were over 500 pages of plants I am growing or have grown in pots and flower beds, but I moved several of those pages to the trash. I don’t think there is much point in having a page with a single photo, a brief description, and growing information for a plant that bit the dust after a month or less. They may do well for someone else, or br great in a rainforest.

I have identified over 250 species of wildflowers because I counted the list earlier in the spring of 2022. I have no idea how many new species were identified over last summer. Species I haven’t seen before just keep popping up. Like the Viola striata (Cream Violet) in the photo. Where did it pop up? In the flower bed along the north side of the house next to the Hosta ‘Empress Wu’. It couldn’t have picked a better and more handy spot. Where did it come from? Who knows.

It is odd because I have been wanting to locate a white violet for a long time besides the “variant” growing in the yard at the church. I wanted ferns in the north bed so I planted an Ostrich Fern there a few years ago. It died. Then a wild fern came up in the bed from out of nowhere, survived, and spread. Then, the darn dead Ostrich Fern decided to come back to life after skipping a year or two. I am not complaining at all.

Maybe I should tell the Universe what I want more often. A new car or pickup would be nice. How about a Ventrac with several attachments or a greenhouse. A really good one would be to stop aging and wake up with no wrinkles.

So, now I have to go through the list of wildflowers and write new pages and write descriptions. Making new pages is easy. It’s writing descriptions in my own words can be a challenge. I read the technical descriptions written by botanists and explain what it means in ordinary language to go along with photos I have taken.

I still haven’t published the post about the Euphorbia species I have identified here on the farm. It all boiled down to waiting to check the seeds of the Euphorbia davidii and E. dentata to see what colonies were one or the other.

Euphorbia davidii and E. dentata seeds collected from various locations.

Using a magnifying glass, I found out the seeds were all the same. Both species have different seeds which is one sure way of telling the two species apart. So, it proved all the colonies here on the farm are the same species. According to the Missouri Plants website, they are Euphorbia dentata. Unfortunately, other websites say the opposite. It seems as though botanists know their seeds are different but can’t agree on which seeds belong to which species. GEEZ!

I compared the two species on Flora of North America species comparison guide. Apparently, I also have to “count” the staminate flowers… Euphorbia davidii has 5-8, while E. dentata has 8-10… Do you realize how small they are? What if I only come up with 8?

I know the above photo isn’t that great. The seeds are fairly small…

You would think it would be easy to just go by the seeds. But when you have only one species that botanists can’t agree on, it gets more complicated. How do I write a page or post when I don’t know what I am talking about. Even if I were a botanist, I would have to choose sides and still not know what I am talking about.

The post was finished several months ago, all but the information about the Euphorbia davidii and E. dentata. I can go ahead and work on that part and publish the post if you want to read it. I’m sure it would be entertaining…

Until next time, be safe, stay positive, and always be thankful!