Texas Thistle and American Basketflower

I collected and scattered a few Texas Thistle, Cirsium texanum, seeds in my front garden last year. 

Since Texas Thistle is a biennial, the seeds sprouted and grew into small plants last year. This plants bloomed this year and will later die.

The flowers attract a number of pollinators. If the flowers are left on the plant, the seeds will be eaten by goldfinches (I read this on the internet and do not have first hand experience). Additionally, the plant is said to be a host plant for painted lady butterfly caterpillars.

Like many plants, Texas Thistle grows much taller in my garden than it does in the wild. It is hard to tell in this picture, but the Texas Thistle in the background is over 6 feet tall. The other plants in this photo that look kind of like a thistle are American Basketflower, Centaurea americana.

I have grown American Basketflower for several years. American Basketflower is an annual and needs to go to seed in order to come back the next year. Most of my plants produce flowers that are light pink in color. 

I added seeds from plants with darker colored flowers a couple of years ago so now I have a wider range of colors. This is not a great photo, but it shows some of the variations in colors.

Here is a close up of one of the darker American Basketflowers. 

American Basketflowers and Texas Thistles are both in the Aster family. It is pretty easy to differentiate the two plants. American Basketflower gets its name because the bracts under the flowerhead look like a basket. The bracts are stiff, but not prickly.  

Texas Thistle has little spines below the flowerhead. 

The leaves of American Basketflower are soft and spineless.

By contrast, the tips of each lobe of Texas Thistle terminates in a point. Gloves are highly recommended when handling this plant.

I will probably remove any new Texas Thistle seedlings that pop up in the front garden and scatter some seeds in the backyard because the plant is a little too tall for the front yard. I will be removing the older seedheads soon because I do not want the plant to take over.

Hearts from Hail

The hail from this past March left lasting marks on the paddles of my spineless prickly pear cactus. It also seems that it may have affected the growth of this year's new paddles that had yet to emerge when the hail hit.

If you look at the outermost paddles, you will see many that are not the typical upside down teardrop shape. There are several that are misshapen. 

Many of the paddles have a notch out of the top which gives them a heart shape appearance.

Hearts from hail? 

 
I can't say for sure. All I know is than none of the paddles were heart shaped before the hail storm.

Still a Mystery

I mentioned my mystery Hesperaloe a few times in the past. It was sold only as "Giant". I could tell that was a Hesperaloe, but what kind? 

I knew it was not the common Red Yucca, Yucca parviflora, so asked the staff at the nursery and they said it was a Giant Red Yucca. Not really knowing if that response was correct, I bought the plant anyway because I liked the structure of the plant with thick filaments curling off the sides of the leafs. 

This is how the plant looked when I bought it in late 2012. I searched the internet and decided it was probably Hesperaloe funifera. I would just need to wait until it bloomed to confirm its identification.

Well, this year it finally bloomed and the flowers are white. I had to zoom in on the flowers because they are blooming about 8 feet above the ground.

I should have said were blooming 8 feet above the ground because flower stalk fell over the next day.

It looks like the hail that hit in mid-March damaged and weakened the stalk enough that it collapsed.

The good news is that the flowers are still blooming and they are much easier to see. 

I noticed that the flowers open at night and close in the morning. Could this be the night blooming Hesperaloe nocturna? I thought so until I did some internet searching. Hesperaloe nocturna does not have stiff, upright leaves like my plant. My plant looks most like Hesperaloe funifera. The thing that keeps me from making a firm ID is that I cannot find any references that Hesperaloe funifera is a night bloomer. Maybe there is another variety that I do not know about?

The mystery continues.