Outdoor Elements
The Great (and Beautiful) Waterleaf
Clip | 4m 28sVideo has Closed Captions
The Great (and Beautiful) Waterleaf is putting on quite a show!
The Great (and Beautiful) Waterleaf is putting on quite a show! Evie found this native wildflower both around her home (where she planted it) and growing at Bendix Woods County Park. And in this episode of Outdoor Elements, she shares what makes it so fascinating. From the unique names it’s been given over the years to the bi-annual blooming cycle, there’s a lot more to t...
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Outdoor Elements is a local public television program presented by PBS Michiana
Outdoor Elements
The Great (and Beautiful) Waterleaf
Clip | 4m 28sVideo has Closed Captions
The Great (and Beautiful) Waterleaf is putting on quite a show! Evie found this native wildflower both around her home (where she planted it) and growing at Bendix Woods County Park. And in this episode of Outdoor Elements, she shares what makes it so fascinating. From the unique names it’s been given over the years to the bi-annual blooming cycle, there’s a lot more to t...
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipI was somewhat surprised to see this lovely lavender flower in my garden bed in this location.
Its great water leaf and I was surprised because I originally planted it.
Oh, I don't know, about ten yards that way in my garden.
That is a mix of native wildflowers and ferns and a few non-natives as well.
It's a shade loving plant and it's a biennial, which means it only produces flowers every other year.
How did it get here?
Well, after it's pollinated and the seeds are produced and this one is just starting to get some seed heads.
The seeds will drop to the ground next spring.
It'll form kind of a rosette of smaller, maple shaped leaves that will not flower.
That plant won't flower until next year, the following year, and then it will shoot up these flower stocks and produce flowers and then eventually seeds.
So it only flowers every other year.
I'm assuming I must have moved some seeds way down here.
And so it's a nice little spot of color in amongst the Virginia creeper.
And some there's some wild ginger here, and there's also some common violet water leaf.
Great water leaf actually does have these maple leaves, and most of the stem is covered with fine fuzzy hairs.
Even the flower buds are covered with fine fuzzy hairs, so it old nickname for the plant is wooly britches or woolen breeches, because it looks like it's kind of wooly, and it does in the woods tend to be a little darker green.
My leaves are lime green, but in the woods the leaves tend to be a little darker green and it will form a beautiful ground cover.
The flowers are important for pollinators, especially in May and June, when this plant flowers in our southern Michigan northern Indiana region.
I happen to pond a beautiful patch of flowering great water leaf at Bendix Woods County Park in New Carlisle, and it was loaded with all kinds of pollinators bumblebees and little tiny flies that look like bees, but also lots of European honeybees.
That's the honey bee that we actually get honey from.
And Bendix Woods County Park actually has an observation hive in the nature center that is full of honeybees.
And they obviously found this beautiful patch of great water leaf in full flower is sometimes called appendage water leaf.
That one's a little more obscure, that name on the underside of the flower there are vertical sepals, green modified leaves that are upright protecting that flower, and in between those sepals.
And that structure is called a calyx, by the way all those sepals together.
So in between each of those sepals there's the tiniest little green structure that comes out almost perpendicular to the stem, very, very tiny.
And that is considered an appendage.
It looks like an appendage.
And that's where the alternate name for this lovely native wildflower comes from.
You almost need a magnifying glass to find it.
It's so, so tiny.
It is a lovely wildflower to add to your shade garden, and I got this one at a native plant nursery in my area, so check it out.
You might want to add it to your landscape as well.
Remember, you can find your own outdoor elements when you visit area parks and natural areas.
We'll see you soon.
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