Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

WILLOW BLUESTAR

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Amsonia tabernaemontana Walt.

Cherokee County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 20-44 inches

Family: Apocynaceae - Dogbane Family

Flowering Period: April, May

Also Called:

Eastern bluestar, bluestar.

Stems:

Erect, simple or branched above, glabrous; branches, ascending.

Leaves:

Alternate, simple; petiole 1/12 to 2/5 inch; stipules absent; blade lanceolate or elliptic, 2.4 to 6 inches long, .8 to 2 inches wide; upper surface dark green, dull, glabrous; lower surface pale green, glabrous or finely-hairy along veins; tips pointed or long-tapering pointed; stalks short; lowermost leaves sometimes sessile.

Inflorescences:

Cyme, flat to pyramidal, loosely- to densely-flowered, terminal or in leaf axils.

Flowers:

Erect to drooping; pedicels 1/12 to 1/4 inch long; calyx .02 to .06 inch, lobes 5, united below, triangular, glabrous; corolla salverform, light blue, corolla tube .25 to .3 inch, villous externally above and on medial parts of lobes, lobes 5, united proximally, lanceolate to lance-oblong, .25 to .35 inch; stamens 5, fused to corolla tube; pistil 1, style 1; stigma 1.

Fruits:

Follicles, erect at maturity, 3.2 to 5.2 inch, smooth, glabrous, not constricted between seeds; seeds numerous, dark brown, oblong, .25 to .35 inch; coma absent.

Habitat:

Moist, rocky soil of stream banks and woods

Distribution:

Southeast corner of Kansas.

Origin:

Native

Comments:

Named for Dr. Charles Amson, an 18th Century Virginia physician and Jakobus Theodorus Tabernaemontanus, a 16th-century German botanist.

Willow bluestar flowers