Sunday, June 16, 2019

New Flower for Fleur-Ange and I . . .



            Last Thursday, on the Beckett Walkers walk, Fleur-Ange and I found a different flower. We thought it looked a bit like Wormseed Mustard but it was way too tall and the leaves looked different too. I spent an hour or so on the computer looking at various sites and came up with a name. I had collected a plant and kept it in a sealed plastic bag in the refrigerator until I could take it into the RBG Herbarium. There one of the summer staff took on the identification challenge and came up with a name. I was happy to find that his identification, via various web sites and use of the microscope, was the same as mine.

            Some Ontario sites do not list the flower and we only have one specimen in the RBG herbarium collected in 1980 from Thunder Bay. On the other hand, other Ontario sites say it is a common introduced plant found in various places around the province since 1941.

            Below are photos that I took of the Erysimum hieraciifolium or European Wallflower.
            
            Vélar à Feuilles d'épervière is the French name.

            I was pleased to see that a synonym was Tall Wormseed Mustard so our original thoughts were not that far off the mark.