Lepachys
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| Exposure: | ☼ | ?"?" is not in the list (sun, part-sun, shade, unknown) of allowed values for the "Exposure" property. |
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| Water: | ◍ | ?"?" is not in the list (wet, moist, moderate, dry, less when dormant) of allowed values for the "Water" property. |
Read about Lepachys in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture
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Lepachys (Greek, a thick scale; probably referring to the thickened upper part of the bracts of the receptacle). Including Ratibida. Composite. Annual or perennial herbs, the most popular of which is a fine prairie wild-flower, L. columnaris, for which, unfortunately, there is no common name. Lepachys contains 4 species of herbs, all American, 'A perennial: leaves alternate, pinnately divided or parted: disks at first grayish, their corollas yellowish, becoming tawny; chaffy bracts commonly marked with an inter-marginal purple line or spot, containing volatile oil or resin; achenes flattened, sharp-margined or winged. For generic distinctions, see Rudbeckia. Lepachys columnaris grows 2 to 3 feet high, has elegantly cut foliage, and bears flowers something like a brown-eyed Susan, but the disk is finally cylindrical and more than an inch high, with 6 or 7 oval, reflexed rays hanging from the base. In a fine specimen these rays are 1 1/2inches long and nearly 1 inch broad. There are 5 inches or more of naked wiry stem between foliage and flower. Typically, the rays are yellow, but perhaps the most attractive form is var. pulcherrima, which has a large brown or brown-purple area toward the base of each ray. Like the greater number of our native western flowers that are cultivated in the eastern states, the plants have reached our gardens from European cultivators. Meehan says it is perfectly hardy in our northern borders, but the English do not regard it as entirely safe without some winter protection. Moreover, it is one of the easiest herbaceous perennials to raise from seed, flowering the first year, and it is chiefly treated in the Old World as an annual bedding plant, the seeds being known to the trade as Obeliscaria pulcherrima. For bedding, the seeds are sown in early spring in a hotbed, the seedlings pricked off into boxes, hardened off, and finally transplanted to the open, only slight care being necessary to obtain compact bushes about 2 feet high. Under such circumstances the plants flower from June to September, and the season may be prolonged by a sowing in the open. This has proved useful in our northern borders, where seed should be thinly sown in the open, where the plants are to stand, with a fair chance of autumnal bloom the same year. The flowers last well in water and should be cut with long stems to get the benefit of the delicately-cut foliage. L. pinnata is perfectly hardy at New York and is a serviceable perennial. CH
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References
- Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963
External links
- w:Lepachys. Some of the material on this page may be from Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons license.
- Lepachys QR Code (Size 50, 100, 200, 500)
