Friday, October 05, 2012

Name this flower

"Google is your friend," someone used to say, back in the pre-blogging days. And it is, more often than not. Not when it keeps you up for a couple of extra hours, with promises to show you what you want on the next page, if you just tweak your search terms a bit. Politician-type promises, never to be kept.

I've been searching for this plant. It was in the weeds on the shore at Stories Beach, but it looks more like a cultivated plant.

And the worst thing is that I have the feeling that I really should recognize it. At first glance, even. I don't.

Can you help me?

White double flower, deep-throated, from a sheathed calyx, in a spray at the top of a sturdy stem. Leaves oval to lanceolate, parallel-veined, alternating, opposite.*

At least I can identify - broadly - the resident critters. There's an ant on the sheath of one of those flowers.

Another ant, on a petal.


And a cute little jumping spider. There's just the slightest hint of pink in the flowers.

Backside of the spider. Because I like the pattern on his back.

*Update: Identified, in the comments, as Saponaria oficinalis, Bouncing Bet/Soapwort. Not in any of my BC guidebooks.


3 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:57 am

    how about Saponaria officinalis, Bouncing Bet/Soapwort?

    Not sure if it grows by you, but sometimes it's not reflexed and sometimes it's pinkish.

    See http://www.robsplants.com/plants/SaponOffic

    ReplyDelete
  2. It looks carnation-ish to me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sara, yes, that's it. Thank you! I looked it up in my local plant guides, under all the names I could find; it isn't there.

    The soapwort I recognized is a single flower.

    Eileen, that's probably why it looked familiar to me, too. It's in the Carnation family.

    ReplyDelete

I'm having to moderate all comments because Blogger seems to have a problem notifying me. Sorry about that. I will review them several times daily, though, until this issue is fixed.

Also, I have word verification on, because I found out that not only do I get spam without it, but it gets passed on to anyone commenting in that thread. Not cool!

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