Today's photograph is courtesy of marcella2@Flickr (original image | BPotD Flickr Group Pool). If you click on the marcella2@Flickr link, you'll be greeted by over three dozen other images of plants. Thank you, marcella2!
The European meadow salsify (or showy goat's-beard or Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon) can now be found as an introduced species throughout most of North America. I think (read on).
The USDA PLANTS database suggests that Tragopogon pratensis is not valid, and that the plant should actually be known as Tragopogon lamottei. What's curious is that some recent scientific papers mention both Tragopogon pratensis and Tragopogon lamottei as separate species in their experiments (see: Mavrodiev et. al. 2005. Phylogeny of Tragopogon L. (Asteraceae) Based on Internal and External Transcribed Spacer Sequence Data. International Journal of Plant Sciences. 166:117–133). Unfortunately, I don't currently have access to the primary scientific literature to resolve why there is some apparent confusion surrounding the name – it will have to wait until later in the week when I return from Manitoba.
Photography resource link: “How to Find the Best Light for a Specific Photograph”, an article from The Luminous Landscape by Alain Briot.
Hi,
You are correct about the larch - the leaves turn yellow in fall, before falling from the trees. There's a stand of larches I can see from my living room windows and every fall, I think they are dead, because it just looks so strange to see all that yellow on a conifer. Then I remember that they're just larches.
Pat (in the Appalachians in northern Pennsylvania)
Great timing! Just the other day I noticed some of these near work (Portland, OR) and wondered what they were.
I'm coming late to the site, but the previous comments reminded me of when I was a young Wide-eyed Bride eons ago, just transported from Hawaii to upstate NY and my prankster husband let me think the larches (or as we called them,Tamaracks) were all dead. He kept up the charade until I commented on the pale greenness the next spring and quizzed him about the "lichen on the dead trees"..... What a hoot! It was years before I lived it down.