The morning started with the weather alert radio blaring out a severe thunderstorm watch for the Cape area. The temps climbed to the high 70s and the air felt wet and sticky, but we didn’t get much rain here. In the late afternoon, we experienced some sharp lightning and window-rattling thunder to the north of us, but that was about all.
A couple mornings ago, I noticed one bright tulip in the planter next to Mother’s front door. This afternoon, I spotted half a dozen. There was some drizzle dripping down my neck, so I didn’t spend much time admiring the flowers.
Purple things
I’ve confessed before that my plant knowledge is embarrassingly meager. In fact, you could probably boil it down to Poison Ivy and Not Poison Ivy.
These purple flowers fall into the Not Poison Ivy family.
You can click on the photos to make them larger.
The purple things say “mint family” to me, but I’m not sure. The shape of the leaves and their arrangement opposite to each other in pairs is one clue. If they have a square stem in cross section, it’s probably a mint.
Keep in mind that stinging nettles are also in the mint family. That flower doesn’t remind me of stinging nettle, but if you take some leaves and stems, break them up between your hands and smear them on yourself you’ll find out. If they don’t sting, find a similar plant, perhaps growing in an old barnyard, and try that instead. Eventually you’ll find it.
Then you could know about the Stinging Nettle and Not Stinging Nettle families.
Nice photo of the flower petals.
John,
I learned the hard way that you can’t hug every palm tree.
It was my habit when I had been driving a long time to push against a tree or pole to stretch my muscles. There is a palm tree in one of the Florida rest stops that has a bark the comes off like nearly invisible splinters.
I tried tweezers, wax and pumice soap, but they had to work their way out on their own.