30 June 2012

Here’s a beautiful wildflower that’s blooming now in western Pennsylvania.

Water willow (Dianthera americana) attracts your attention when you notice that its three foot tall greenery is dotted with small white and purple flowers only 1.5 inches across.

Water willow got its name from its two most obvious characteristics:  it’s a perennial water plant and it has long leaves that resemble willow leaves.

But it’s not a willow. It grows from rhizomes in swamps or along the wet edges of streams, rivers, and ponds.  You can’t grow it in your garden; it has to have wet feet.

Sharon Leadbitter found this one along the Allegheny River near the Tarentum Bridge.  I’ve seen it growing in Slippery Rock Creek, the Youghiogeny River at Ohiopyle, and in Chartiers Creek at Boyce-Mayview wetlands.

If you visit the water’s edge this weekend, keep an eye out for water willow.  You might find a large colony of it.