Tuesday, October 11, 2011

An Alphabetical Autumn Stroll


A is for Asters with Amsonia. (even if the asters are no longer called asters botanically) An A+ combo for fall, as seen in the border outside of Brooklyn Botanic, museum side.


B is for the blueberry bush around the corner. What beats a plant that produces both fruit and fall color?


and C is for the cordate (heart-shaped) leaves of a Redbud cultivar, maybe 'Forest Pansy'. (Just the youngest leaves at the tips of the branches were this vibrant red, so I don't think it's the straight species, which is more typically yellow in the fall.)

All natives to North America and with the exception of the Amsonia, which grows wild in Oklahoma and Arkansas, all northeast natives to boot. Not too shabby a showing for a few square blocks in Brooklyn.

4 comments:

sarah said...

wait, asters aren't asters any more? I'm confused. Help! I refer to the kind shown above as "the big purple kind". I'm counting on you for actual botanical knowledge!

Sweetgum Thursday said...

Boy oh boy are you in trouble then! Here is what I know. Most of the north american asters (say like Aster novi-belgii) have been reclassified into a different genus based on studies of their dna. That's why you'll see them renamed as Symphyotrichums in nurseries and anything published now. But of course people still call them asters, and thankfully so, because it is so much easier to say. Big purple kind works for me.

Marie said...

Funny, I nearly photographed those particular non asters yesterday, too...

Sweetgum Thursday said...

Yeah. That border is pretty sweet right now. Hope the cleanup went well in P. Park.