[NatureNS] re Comfrey vs. Bluebells in NS

From: AngelaJoudrey <aljoudrey@eastlink.ca>
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 06:55:37 -0300
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Japanese knotweed maybe?



On 06/28/13, Larry Ayers  <larry.ayers@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for your suggestions, James and Jane! I had considered comfrey -- but I'm familiar with the plant, having seen it under cultivation over the years, but thought that the flowers and leaf size of the new plant weren't "right". I think that James nailed the ID with his suggestion that it might be rough comfrey, an Old World species I had never heard of. The photos I found on the web matched exactly. 
> 
> Here's another botanical puzzler which will no doubt be obvious to NS natives. There is a peculiarly fleshy weedy plant which grows in ditches such as the canals feeding the Annapolis River at Bridgetown. It's tall, grows in dense colonies, and hasn't flowered yet. The stems are speckled and the leaves are broad and rounded. It has an "invasive alien" feel to it, at least to this observer.
>  
> 
> Any ideas?
> 
> 
> Larry Ayers
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 10:26 PM, James W. Wolford <jimwolford@eastlink.ca> wrote:
> 
> 
> >  I'll bet Jane is right about you probably having common comfrey, Symphytum officinale, which is currently in bloom along our rail trail in Wolfville. We also have a less common second species, rough comfrey, S. asperum. Cheers from Jim in Wolfville.
> > 
> > 
> > Begin forwarded message:
> > 
> > 
> > > From: Dave&Jane Schlosberg <dschlosb-g@ns.sympatico.ca>
> > >  Date: June 27, 2013 7:49:59 PM ADT
> > >  To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
> > >  Subject: Re: [NatureNS] Bluebells (Mertensia) in NS
> > >  Reply-To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
> > >  
> > > 
> > >    Could it be comfrey (symphytum officinale)? Different family, but fits your description.
> > >  Jane
> > >     
> > >   From: Larry Ayers <larry.ayers@gmail.com> 
> > >  Sent: Thursday, June 27, 2013 4:58 PM
> > >  To: NatureNS <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca> 
> > >  Subject: [NatureNS] Bluebells (Mertensia) in NS
> > > 
> > > 
> > >   
> > > 
> > >   Hello -- I'm an American staying in the Round Hill area this summer, and I've been trying to identify the native and alien plants in the neighborhood. Lots of aliens in the Annapolis Valley!  
> > >  There's a road ditch in front of a vacant house on Hwy. 201 which harbors a profuse growth of a plant which has flowers very like those of the Eastern Bluebell, Mertensia virginica. It's a taller plant with rough-hairy lanceolate leaves and I'm wondering if it might be Mertensia paniculata, the Tall Bluebell. That species grows as far east as Quebec and could have been brought to NS as a garden plant, perhaps.
> > >   
> > >  Has anyone seen these?
> > >   
> > >  Larry Ayers 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
--
"The significant problems of our time cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them."
Albert Einstein

"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world."
John Muir

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