Saturday, April 16, 2011

Viola labridorica and Lamiastrum galeobdolon

Viola labradorica
Viola labradorica
It’s that time of year when we start noticing plants again that have waited out the dreary winter. One of them is Viola labradorica, commonly called the Labrador violet, which is a hardly little plant that is in bloom now. The picture of the one shown here has survived temperatures and conditions (this is Seattle, so not that severe!) that have wiped out seemingly more hardly plants in the Travelmarx front garden. We guess being from cold places, this plant is on vacation in Seattle? Pull out a labradorica and you will see it has a quite a long tap root which is probably part of the secret of its success.

The other plant that is in bloom now is Lamiastrum galeobdolon, commonly called the Yellow Archangel. Galeobdolon is no friend of the King County Noxious Weeds folks; they describe it as a non-designated Class C noxious weed. Before learning about its noxious behavior we did have some in our yard but have since removed all traces except for the display here which is in a pot with a yucca. It can’t spread by stem fragments in the current situation, but theoretically could by seed.

Lamiastrum galeobdolon

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