This plant is on northern California Zone 9. During day the flower blooms, and in the evening the flower closes itself. The flowers are purple in color and has a long green stem.
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1 Answer
This is "salsify", or "Tragopogon porrifolius", to be "scientific" about it.
Pretty, right? They are actually selling plugs of it here, but I have it in my front "lawn", and it is a pretty noxious weed. Big, too. Some of the taller specimens can grow up to above my waist.
This picture doesn't quite do justice to their full size.
Per Wikipedia, it's in the daisy family. The flowers are sort of pretty, and they mature into the characteristic daisy puffball composed of seeds on little parachutes of fluff. In the case of salsify the puffballs are maybe 3-4 inches in diam. (quite striking really, as they are an interesting shade of coppery brown), and the seeds themselves are abt. a quarter inch long. This reproductive strategy (the parachute method) is very effective, so don't let these plants go to seed unless you want to start a salsify farm.
Don't laugh! Supposedly you can eat the long slender taproot (which, by the way, isn't easy to dig out completely from your lawn):
But I will tell you I tasted it. Maybe I didn't clean it as well as I should have, but I washed it as best I could, and it still tasted like dirt.
I didn't have this recipe from http://www.junedarville.com/roasted-salsify.html at the time though, so maybe I should try it again.
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I quickly realized that it’s sort of a weed and removed it. Already the seed has spread and I see few more popping in the vicinity.. you are definitely an amazing writer - loved reading your post. Cheers May 27, 2019 at 17:10