Today’s flower is an interesting one (and a native, to boot!) – woolly gromwell (Lithospermum ruderale). According to Plants of Alberta (France Rover, Richard Dickinson), there are only thirty species of the Borage family growing wild in Alberta, of which this is one. In early summer, the west slopes of Nose Hill here in Calgary are dotted with these strange spiky-leaved plants, in full bloom.
What ruderal plants are common where you live? I always think of fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium, syn. Chamerion angustifolium) – in mid-summer, it is simply spectacular in roadside ditches and in mountain meadows.
Flowery Prose 
Lovely example of a ruderal.The common wayside weed rosebay willow herb earnt it’s nickname ‘bombweed’ in the Second World War for popping up in flattened urban sites, I love it both in its wild pink or cultivated white form.
Thanks for the fascinating info about rosebay willow herb! It is such a beautiful plant.
Thank for for these beautiful Friday gifts!
I’m so pleased you enjoy them!
Not common here, of course, but we do have a eucalyptus tree in our England’s New Forest garden. Does that qualify?0
I don’t see why not! 🙂
Beautiful!! I would love to see such a dainty flower. I don’t think it has spread to BC.
Thanks Sheryl.
Jean
I couldn’t find any mention of it in your area, but I did come across a citation for it in the table of contents of a book by Neil L. Jennings called “Central Beauty: Wildflowers and Flowering Shrubs of the Southern Interior of British Columbia.” I don’t think it’s very common in B.C. at all – it would probably be difficult to track down.
Have an enjoyable weekend!
What an exciting flower
It has a really interesting form!
Very pretty. I imagine even lovelier en masse. When you said ‘borage family’ I immediately thought of Echium vulgare. (Is it borage family?!) It is such a lovely refreshing sight at the roadsides and even in the woods in the height of summer. 🙂
Yes, it’s definitely in the borage family! I agree, Echium vulgare has such beautiful flowers – the colour is amazing! Unfortunately, it’s considered an invasive here and has to be destroyed when found. 😦
[J] Ruderal is a word new to me! Peaty ground – Silverweed. Around the edges of bare rock – Creeping Thyme. In the walled garden – Borage, Coriander, Aqualegia
Great examples! Your mention of silverweed really jogged my memory – I got to poring through some of my photos to find out which species I have come across while hiking. We have a few different ones here, both on the Prairies and in the mountains. It turns out that either I haven’t seen that many, or I failed to photograph them. 🙂
Such a pretty flower! Ruderal – yes, definitely fireweed and stinging nettle too.
Oh yes, stinging nettle, for sure!
What a lovely flower. We don’t have it here, which isn’t surprising, but we do have Lithospermum incisum, commonly called fringed puccoon, and some others. When I looked at a list of Boraginaceae here in Texas, I had to laugh at some of the common names: twining soldierbush and Mexican crinklemat, for example.
Ruderal is a new word for me, too. Baccharis neglecta, or poverty weed, comes to mind, along with two Euphorbias: snow-on-the-mountain and snow-on-the-prairie.
I really enjoyed looking up the plants you mentioned. Indeed, some of those common names are quite inventive….
I’m going to add some links in case anyone else wants to take a look at a few of these:
Mexican crinklemat – http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=TIME
Twining soldierbush – http://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/169834-Tournefortia-volubilis
Fringed puccoon – http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/prairie/plantx/fr_puccoon.html (such beautiful flowers!)
Lovely and thanks for the link to the dictionary, it was needed!
Thanks, and you’re welcome! 🙂
Excellent!! I would love to see such a dainty flower…What an energizing bloom..
It is definitely a beauty!