Two cool plants: Creeping Phlox and Twisted Sedge

As I may have mentioned in previous posts, I've been laboring away to eliminate a backlog of un-curated photos. Some date back to 2016. Most come from the spring/summer seasons, when sometimes I would return from trips with scads of images, but immediately get sucked into all manner of activities upon return. So, some folders would go into a to-be-archived folder. Fortunately, there's only about 50-60 such folders, but it's still a lot of work. I do keep current on archival of most photos, fortunately. I'm particular about how images are labeled and archived. All of mine are tagged with metadata that at a minimum includes species name, scientific name, county, state, date, and often more specific site names. Sometimes other short notes as well.

Once the images are labeled, they go onto the Cloud (good to have a storage facility completely removed from base camp, I think) and on two hard drives (duplicity is good). Careful labeling helps me find things fast, no matter when they were taken, and I can drum up about any photo I'm looking for quickly. But it isn't just about me. Having detailed metadata associated with images could be useful in the distant future. Who knows how long our digital photos could hang around, but it could be centuries or more. Someone stumbling across my images in the year 2225 could have a treasure trove of well-documented photos at a time when the earth might be very different than it currently is.

Anyway, one of the fun elements of this photo curation is revisiting sites through the images. Here are a few plants from a trip to Hocking County, Ohio on April 28, 2017. I include them here in part because I think that both would make good, interesting plants for home landscaping. While I'd think some nurseries would sell Creeping Phlox, so that one probably is accessible, I doubt if any nurseries carry Twisted Sedge.

This streambank along a small creek in Hocking County, Ohio is covered with a dense stand of Twisted Sedge (Carex torta). The sedge is densely rhizomatous, and its cord-like roots bind the unstable soil. Twisted Sedge is a pioneer species of newly exposed banks and gravel bars in riparian habitats, usually smaller streams like the one in the image.

Sedges in the genus Carex offer quite the potential buffet for the adventurous gardener. In Ohio alone, there are over 180 species, and Carex is probably the most speciose genus in all of the eastern states. Unfortunately, the vast majority of them have not been brought into captivity, and most never will.

As always, click the photo to enlarge

Here's the flowering/fruiting culm of Twisted Sedge. It's quite ornate. The long, skinny terminal spike is comprised of the staminate (male) flowers. The three bristly lower spikelets are the pistillate (female) flowers, now mostly developed into fruit. In Carex-speak, the fruit are known as perigynia. And in this case, the perigynia are exceptionally striking. Their lime-green coloration is punctuated by rich chocolate-brown scales.

Twisted Sedge favors shady environs, which could be a further asset for the landowner having trouble finding interesting natives for such places. I hope to get some of this sedge next year, and experiment with it on my property. My hunch is it'll be pretty easy to successfully grow.

This photo was made in nearly the same spot as the Twisted Sedge above. Indeed, the grassy-looking clumps along the steam banks is that sedge. But this is also habitat for one of our showiest phloxes. And all phloxes are showy.

We move in on some Creeping Phlox (Phlox stolonifera). This image illustrates the common name. The plant sends out stolons (basically small rhizomes on the ground's surface) that creep about. A colony will often have relatively few flowering spikes relative to the number of leafy stolons.

It is no coincidence that this phlox and the Twisted Sedge have similar growth habits. Life along the stream means scouring floods. Because of their anchoring rhizomes and stolons, Creeping Phlox and Twisted Sedge can hold their ground.

The gorgeous flowers of Creeping Phlox, but are not the flowers of ALL phloxes gorgeous?

In addition to providing aesthetic beauty, the flowers lure Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, hummingbird clearwing moths in the genus Hemaris,  swallowtail butterflies, and all manner of other insects.

Creeping Phlox reaches the northern limits of its range in Hocking County, Ohio, where I made these shots. To the east of Ohio, in more mountainous areas, it extends all of the way north to southern Maine.

With its propensity for shady haunts, Creeping Phlox might also make an interesting native plant for tough-to-grow places.