Texas Gardening: Gardening with Texas Native plants @ Wildflowers. Part 3., 1 by bettydee

bettydee wrote:
That is going to be some task. Between TAMU's list, the USDA's lists and other books, it's a real mess. Names change. The lists may not be complete. TAMU's list & photos are identical to photos from Digital Flora of Texas Vascular Plant Image Library. I tried to find one flower. It took me 2+ hours to sort things out.

For example, I picked a plant that is blooming now. It blankets our pastures for several weeks. It's a member of the Iris Family. So far so good. All references I checked agreed on that. Texas Wildflowers doesn't list it at all. The photo in Wildflowers of Texas lists it as Herbertia drummondii (This photo is identical to what I have.) TAMU has photos of Herbertia lahue, almost identical, but not what I have growing here. It doesn't list H. drummondii. The USDA plant data files list 6 synonyms and 3 different flowers under the same name. The Pacific Bulb Society has photos of Herbertia lahue as well as photos of H. lahue ssp. caerulea (Identical to mine.) Now that I'm throughly confused I spend the next hour or so sorting through names and photos. Several of the names listed by the USDA plant data files are no longer accepted. This includes the name used in Wildflowers of Texas. One of those names, Alophia drummondii, has been given to another member of the Iris Family. After 2+ hours of searching and looking at photos, I found that Herbertia drummondii is no longer a valid name. It is now known as Herbertia lahue ssp. caerulea, a native but not an endemic wildflower. The common name mentioned by the USDA is propeller plant, TAMU calls H. lahue celestials and a PDF file on Coastal Prairie Flowers calls them prairienymphs.