Dayflowers have intensely blue flowers (from which the Japanese make an intensely blue dye) that open from a crescent-shaped spathe and are gone by the middle of the afternoon. Usually only one flower opens in the spathe at a time, but once in a while we see two or even three together.
For a description of the species, see the Commelina communis reference page.
Lemon Balm, or just Balm, was brought over to this country for its delightful scent and flavor and for its supposed medicinal properties. It was believed to cure melancholy, among other things, and certainly gathering a handful and making a tisane from it is a good way to raise one’s spirits. Often planted in herb gardens, it easily escapes, and the tiny seeds wash downhill and form colonies anywhere they find a foothold. It can become quite weedy, but its delightful scent and many uses make it hard to resent. These plants were growing along a fence and by a sidewalk in Beechview.
The name Melissa, from the Greek word for a bee, reminds us that this plant makes bees happy, too, and who doesn’t want happy bees?
For a description of the species, see the Melissa officinalis reference page.
Listed as Chrysanthemum parthenium in many references. The plants bear dozens of little daisy flowers, and in some specimens—like these from Schenley Park—the rays crowd themselves so much that they create a doubling effect, which has been bred into full doubles in garden varieties.
A variable plant with flowers ranging from deep violet to white. It is adaptable to every habitat from open woods to fields, and often pops up in lawns, where it will bloom very low to the ground and sometimes escape the mower. The flower heads that develop into thick thumbs are distinctive. The plants above and below were blooming in a field in South Park.
This plant was blooming in mowed grass in Schenley Park.
For a description of the species, see the Prunella vulgaris reference page.
Black and gold—a perfect Pittsburgh flower. Black-Eyed Susan is often planted as an ornamental, but it is also native in our area, as indeed it is in much of the eastern half of the United States. This large stand was blooming in a field in South Park.
