Jump to content

Polemonium carneum

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Royal Jacob's-ladder)

Polemonium carneum
Polemonium carneum in southern Oregon
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Ericales
Family: Polemoniaceae
Genus: Polemonium
Species:
P. carneum
Binomial name
Polemonium carneum

Polemonium carneum is a plant native to the northwestern United States west of the crest of the Cascade Range, from Washington south through Oregon to the San Francisco Bay Area in California.

Etymology

[edit]

Common names include royal Jacob's-ladder,[1] great polemonium, Oregon polemonium and salmon polemonium.

Habitat

[edit]

It grows in the lowlands and in prairies to moderate elevations in the mountains, and inhabits woody thickets, open and moist forests, prairie edges, and roadsides.[2]

Description

[edit]

This is a rhizomatous perennial herb producing one or more stems decumbent in form or erect to a maximum height near one meter. The leaves are compound with up to 21 leaflets each. The sticky-haired leaflets are somewhat lance-shaped and up to 4 centimeters long. The inflorescence is an open, spreading cluster of 3 to 7 flowers each borne on a thin peduncle. The flower is widely bell-shaped with a five-lobed corolla that may spread to nearly 3 centimeters wide. The flower corolla may be any shade of pale pink, salmon pink, yellow, or pale lavender to medium purple.[2]

The plant is sometimes grown in gardens as an ornamental.

References

[edit]
  1. ^ NRCS. "Polemonium carneum". PLANTS Database. United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  2. ^ a b "Royal Sky Pilot, Polemonium carneum". calscape.org.
[edit]