Friday’s Seeds – the Turtleheads
I am pleased to have seeds of two North American turtleheads this year: Chelone glabra and Chelone obliqua.
Both species grow best in moist locations in full sun to part shade and are valuable for their late flowering in August-September; bumblebees can’t have enough of their flowers.
The flowers shape reminds of a turtlehead, reason for their Latin and common name: Chelone = turtle in Greek. Tournefort described Chelone glabra as “Chelone Acadiense, flore albo” (Acadia being the name of Nova Scotia, Canada at the time, around 1700).
I remember reading somewhere that Rafinesque was indignant of the chosen name, arguing that the flowers are not reptiles :) He tried to change it to Chlonanthes but it didn’t work of course. Especially the flower buds do really look like a turtlehead!
But I diverge, here are the seeds. They are very similar, as expected; brown to light tan with a surrounding wing.
Chelone obliqua, Pink turtlehead (Fam. Plantaginaceae) capsule and seeds
and
Chelone glabra, White turtlehead seeds
These are not very common in the UK, but I love them, slightly bizarre flowers and easy to grow. Don’t understand why they seem to be so rare here!
Not very common here as well, even with all the hype about native species. The pink one doesn’t grow wild in Canada just in US regions; that’s the one I’ll sow seeds.
I don’t have space for both ;(