Tag: Frasera caroliniensis


American Columbo, Frasera caroliniensis

14
June
American Columbo

American Columbo

American Columbo exemplifies the old saying, “good things come to them that wait”. About five years ago I came across a stand of American Columbo rosettes north of Kalamazoo near the trailhead of the Kal-Haven Trail. I went back every year for the first few years without finding it in bloom. I was going to revisit again this year but no longer need to, to see it blooming. While on a recent field trip with Michigan Botanical Club we visited a Black Oak Barren on the west side of Grand Rapids. Columbo was one of the featured plants listed in the field trip description. There is a good population and several plants had flowering stems, but were not yet blooming. This was the closest I had come to finding it in bloom. After a two week wait I revisited the sight and found it just beginning to bloom.

American Columbo Rosette

American Columbo Rosette

Frasera caroliniensis is a statuesque plant of dry oak, hickory or sassafras openings on sandy or rocky soils and can also occasionally be found in moist forest openings. Columbo the only species of the genus Frasera found in the east and in Michigan is limited to the southern counties. Being a monocarpic plant, it bolts and blooms once and then dies. The significance to this monocarpic behavior is that it may take 5 to 15 years or more to complete this cycle and plants growing in too much shade may never bloom. The rosette consists of 3 to 30 long and narrow medium green basal leaves that can be up to 14 inches long. Stem leaves are smaller and are reduced in length towards the top of the stem. The bolting stem can be green or purple, quite robust and holds the whorls of flowers. When blooming, the plant may reach 3 to 8 feet in height and terminates in a central stem that with as many as 100 flowers per panicale. The unique and interesting flowers are .75 to 1.25 inches across with 4 to 5 (usually 4) petaloid lobes that are greenish white with purple specks or streaks. Conspicuous nectar pads in the middle of each corolla lobe are heavily fringed and surrounded by a green ring. Blooming may only last for 2 to 3 weeks in mid June to early July. The flowers are followed by a strongly beaked ovoid seed capsule. Each capsule contains 4 to 14 crescent-shaped dark brown seeds.

American Columbo

American Columbo

This majestic plant was well worth the wait to finally see it in bloom.

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