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plant names like Tbadflax, Bugbane or Ramping Fumitory? Unlike formal scientific names that are tightly regulated by nomenclatural rules, common names of plants vary considerably from place to place. And all of them have unusual and interesting histories.
One of our most favorite native plants has a funny common name—fameflower. The species found in the county is the roundleaf fameflower, Talinum ter *ifolium, which is widely distributed from New Jersey to Georgia although populations are threatened in many states and relatively uncommon in the rest.
It’s worth looking for. It can be found in open sandy or rocky habitats where little else can grow. We discovered a population on our property in a rocky stream bank, and when we transplanted one nearer the house it promptly dispersed to the gravel garden path where it’s thrived ever since.
The fameflowers are all succulent plants in the Portulacaceae, a family that includes the familiar spring beauty (Claytonia virginica) and the. edible garden purslane (Portulaca oleracea). , Roundleaf fameflowers form 2-inch clusters of fleshy, tubular basal leaves supporting a 6-inchtall, delicate, leafless stalk that bears numerous pink-purple, star-shaped flowers.
The flowering habit of these plants is most peculiar. Each flower opens only once, and only for about 2 hours in the afternoon. Ours open at around 3.00 pm and close again at around 4:30 or 5:00 pm. Once it closes, a flower slowly develops into a small greenish fruit, which eventually splits and sheds seeds.
So all the work to produce a fameflower results in a mere two hours of show.
Time in the sun
Andy Warhol predicted that everyone would eventually be famous for fifteen minutes. At least these flowers get two hours!
It’s been suggested that precision flowering like this is designed to somehow maximize exposure to pollinators. Fameflowers are typically pollinated by sweat bees, which we see swarming around our fameflowers from the time they open until the flowers close up again. But sweat bees are active during most hours of the day, commonly at times
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