On 19/05/2018 22:50, Nick Maclaren wrote:
In article ,
Jeff Layman wrote:

Well, I knew it was Asteraceae (Compositae in pre-decimal currency), so
it was a matter of looking through the Comps in my book of British flora
(The Illustrated Flora of GB and Northern Europe - Blamey and
Grey-Wilson). It wasn't that difficult to find, as just about all other
Asteraceae have leaves with non-smooth edges, and they are fairly wide
to some extent or other. Goat's Beard has very thin, smooth-edged leaves.

Salsify doesn't :-)

Damn. I posted too quickly. What I should have said is that's another
Tragopogon.

True, but I think the colour is a bit of a give-away. Isn't it really
just a purple Goat's Beard?

Sort of. It's normally described as a different species, but I don't
know how separate the species really are. I have given up growing it
in favour of scorzonera, which is more useful (e.g. you can blanch it
for salads, and eat its leaves as a green vegetable). I discovered
the last only recently, but it's really quite good. And, it's easier
to grow, being perennial.

There's a cluster of species formed of T. pratensis pro parte, T. minor,
T. dubius and T. porrifolius pro parte. The North American neopolyploids
T. mirus and T. miscellus are T. dubius x T. porrifolius and T. dubius x
T. pratensis respectively. (The latter could be T. minor - it's not
usual practice to segregate it.) Other populations of T. pratensis and
T. porrifolius are more distantly related, and I need to read a few more
papers to find out what's going on, but the British populations of both
species appear to belong to the name-bearing taxa, and are therefore
close relations.

The hybrid T. x mirabilis is nearly sterile, so they do look like good
species. (The fertile Czech "T. x mirabilis" is not of this parentage.)

I believe that you can do the same with the Tragopogons (including
T. pratensis), but haven't done it myself.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.