Plant Driven: Ozarks, part I
- Josh and Kelly check out an awesome specimen of Callirhoe involucrata
Welcome to the Ozarks! The Plant Driven crew (which includes yours truly, Elizabeth Childs, and Josh Schultes) will spend the next four days tramping about wild lands in Shannon County, MO in search of great plants for American gardens. Here are notes from today’s travels:
June 10, 2009
Shannon County, MO
Temperature: 84 degrees
Skies: Cloudy, storms approaching
We arrived in Eminence around 5:00 PM after a short stop north of town to take in the view. Here on this sheer cliff face grew an assortment of natives we hope to find throughout our trip including Callirhoe involucrata, Penstemon cobaea (a particularly large-flowered, grape-colored form), and Coreopsis lanceolata.
After checking in to our hotel and a short rest (driving here was exhausting particularly as we got closer and turned and spun around hairpin curves with the ease of a race car), we headed out for some pre-exploration along Highway 106 towards Alley Spring. After ascending down a rather steep hill with a cement drainage channel on the side, I demanded the car stop. Josh and Elizabeth dropped me off driving further up the road to find a place to pull over. Here in just a 30’ x 30’ area grew an assortment of vines and ramblers including Passiflora incarnata, the veritable passionflower, and the diminutive and overlooked Rhynchosia latifolia, the prairie snout bean, a wandering vine with yellow, pea-like blossoms. It amazes me how an otherwise pampered, cherished plant like passionflower grows in the wild only feet from where speeding cars travel and in red clay seemingly better fit for pottery than as a substrate. A host of Echinacea pallida grew nearby amid outcroppings of Monarda bradburiana (remember from the pictures in my garden?) What a great way to start the trip!
 | Published on June 11th, 2009 | Posted by kdnblog |