I’ve been hoping for a while now to order seed from somewhere that sells Hoary Paccoon but have had no luck finding any.
Lithospermum canescens
is an early spring blooming glade/barren obligate, it’s not endemic to the interior lowland platues, but instead has a vast range and even gets into the short grass barrens and dune communities. It’s canescent foliage is perfectly adapted for sand blasting and for the harsh heat and lack of water of the summer barren landscapes. When not much else is out in Ohio it sticks out like a sore thumb, has some of the brightest orange/yellow flowers that really pop no madder how dreary the day is. When I say obligate, I mean they tend not to germinate unless their seeds have ample light doring their stratification period. So, more like obligate in situ, I’ve heard that they can be easily grown from seed in nursery with a calcareous medium.
There is one beetle that require members of this group for survival and because of that it is a critical plant for the ecosystem. “The larvae of a long-horned beetle, Hemierana marginata ardens, feeds on Lithospermum spp., probably by boring through the stems and/or roots” (Yanega, 1996). “Because the foliage of Hoary Puccoon contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids, it can be considered more or less toxic to many herbivores.” -illinois flora
Cicindelidia rufiventris, the eastern red bellied tiger beetle, also may have linked obligate ecological connections to this species; but, not enough research has been done to confirm that for sure.
The inflorescence clustering is also a classic synapomorphy in the xeric members of Boraginaceae: a condenced scorpioid cyme
