Edit to add this from another thread I posted this morning... It belongs here for others who might be following Jim's farm...
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Basic primer on taking pics to id plants... google any terms I don't explain.
1. Need pics of the leaves to show
a. are the leaves "alternate or opposite" each other on the stem.
b. general leaf shape, smooth or toothed edges.
2. Height of plant
3. Seeds (tricky) they can be within husks, pods, alone... sometimes it's hard to even find the actual seeds.
4. Blooms, anytime of the year. Blooms are the give away on id
Check this site... they are asking you for basic input data that I would need also
http://www.southeasternflora.com/SearchForm.php If you don't know all the input data it's okay... just get what you know. Lots of university data bases are set up this way. Enter the bloom, leaf arrangement, hit enter, and the site will display 40 or 50 plant species to choose from.
I always check the stem shape... Is it square or round? Sounds silly I know but this little tidbit of info will speak volumes sometimes.
Remember this expression... All mints have square stems but not all square stemmed plants are mints...
26,000 species of mints world wide, less than 4000 in the eastern US, if a plant has a square stem you've just ruled out a few hundred thousand other possibilities. Talk about narrowing down an id!
Also, another little secret here in the eastern us... the other plants that have square stems here are all in the Verbena family. So, just knowing if a plant has a square stem you have narrowed the possibilities down to "relative" handful.
5. Size reference. Keep a regular old cheap bic pen in you pocket... a playing card... bic lighter... clip a clothes pin on the stem... anything people easily recognize the size of. Lay it in the photo with your plant.
I'll add to this list as I think of a few others...
I prefer to teach in the spring and summer... It's far easier to learn plants as they bloom and easier to remember them. Oh, green is a color, lots of plants have green blooms. Ragweed has green blooms!
Starting next spring pick the section of that creek you want to learn. Walk it once or twice a week. Photo every plant that blooms and post them.
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Back to Jims farm...
Look up Conoclinium coelestinum, purple mist flower, looks like a deformed one, and really short. They are usually 1 to 2ft tall. There are two species common in the southeast though the books list them as just one species. I believe there are two seperate species. The big one is in the 3ft tall range.
Lunaria annua is another possibility. much more rare. I've only seen it once or twice.
From the photos, the stem doesn't look square. This rules out any of the late season mints like skullcap and the monarda's which are 1ft to 3ft tall. It doesn't look like one of the dozen or so Phlox's that bloom this time of year...
Did you feel the stem? Be sure... is it round or square...
With this height and a square stem all the tiny little mints come into play... the dead nettles and such, 8 or 10 of those.
Thought this'd be easy huh? For each question you ask I got a dozen for you... each answer you give leads to even more questions... just to narrow down the possibilities. There is a purpose to this madness!