I saw this the other day in Stony Brook, on L.I. Spotted while passing in a car, I was pretty certain it was purple loosestrife. I haven't seen much of loostrife on Long Island, but occasionally in people's gardens. Here it is planted in a town park, at the edge of an estuary.
What a pretty bloom. The color is very striking. A lovely plant choice.
ReplyDeleteIt IS a pretty bloom, but the majorist of no-nos in our neck of the woods. I loved this plant back when I thought it just another of our lovely plants!
ReplyDeleteI also thought loosestrife - which I love even though I must not - but something about the flowers looks too fat?
ReplyDeleteCould it be fireweed - Chamerion angustifolium?
Scroll down to about the 8th or 9th phto in tis long (sorry) post.
http://66squarefeet.blogspot.com/2008/09/fields-of-flowers-mt-baker.html
I shoulda got out and looked, lazy me.
ReplyDeleteI've never encountered fireweed on LI, what an interesting choice for some local garden club, highway dept, or town beautification committee!
That's all that makes me doubt that possibility.
But then I am surprised by the loosetrife too. So, a little fat in the flower spike, but I think the fireweed spike may be a bit more loosely flowered than the loosestrife. Hmmm.
Wrench.
Purple loosstrife grows in very wet conditions. I suspect this one is something else.
ReplyDeleteI've seen it in regular ol' gardens, fields, roadside ditches, and this rooftop garden:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gardenbytes.com/2009/06/is-it-too-much.html
But maybe its something else....
I suspect something else, because aroud here, there are dense, major thickets of the stuff in sunny wetlands and pond edges - but it grows nowhere else. Which reminds me, I need to get a photo of the Charles river when it blooms this year. There is at least a solid acre of it near our home that goes purple.
ReplyDelete