#tiarella

[faguscarolinensis]

Tiarella cordifolia / Heart-Leaved Foamflower at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens at Duke University in Durham, NC

[geopsych]

Front steps, the containers are filling in.

[suncaida]

Tiarella x "Sweet and Spicy"

a favorite Genus :)

[vandaliatraveler]

My family is convinced I was kidnapped by forest gnomes when I was a boy and brainwashed into believing nature is more fun than my own kin. They got one part of that right. Seriously, how can a weekend stuck in a tourist trap full of plastic bears and overpriced restaurants compete with 20 minutes of combing through the extraordinary diversity of life crammed into a few square feet of wet rock outcropping in one of Appalachia’s rich, temperate forests? I don’t see how anyone can blame a hopeless nature nerd for choosing the rock.

Top to bottom: Virginia waterleaf (Hydrophyllum virginianum); squirrel corn (Dicentra canadensis); northern maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum); heartleaf foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia); purple-flowering raspberry (Rubus odoratus); plantain-leaved sedge (Carex plantaginea): woodland stonecrop (Sedum ternatum); and various mosses and liverworts.

[asadflowerblog]

tiarella Pink Skyrocket

[maoyeamh]

[angiec333]

Delicate white flower spike of foam flower (Tiarella wherryi)

Image available as digital downloads, wall art, gifts and more at Thoughts of Dawn - Foam Flower

[cedar-glade]

Tiarella cordifolia

Heart Leaf Foamflower

Another Eastern North America mesic forest member of the saxifrage family. In Appalachia this is the star of the stream lining communities and seap communities during the transition from spring to summer; but, it’s not limited to requiring these seaps or streams, rich woodlands and decaying stumps offer enough moisture and nutrients for a foot hold. I suppose some people may argue there favorite var. or microspecies: (T. wherryi byosyn.= T. cordifolia ssbsp. wherryi), T. cordifolia var. cordifolia, and T. cordifolia var. collina. 

Though, thats probably going to be a discussion based on how you see these in-situ or in a garden. 

As for microspecies denotation: there are current and on going bouts for arguements based on apomictic conjunction in-situ from outcrossing hybrids that evolved in allopatric events and now occur synonymously by aesthetic in populations, meeting or reconverging in sympatry. Stolon conjunction and disconnection is present only in what some people confirm as T. wherryi  where apomictic populations persist and form by vivipory mainly instead of seed casting. The issue stems from occasional outcrossing events and imbrications of species in sympatry, almost like a reconverging and settling. (small scale Species cladistics level brading?)  Anywho, MOBOT collective does note this issue somewhat and in FNA vol. 8 a foot note was added along time ago about accepted species designation, instead of calling it a microsp or subsp. 

“Tiarella wherryi and T. cordifolia have been differentiated primarily on the basis of lack of stolons in T. wherryi. Such plants grow in mixed populations and it has been impossible to differentiate taxa on the basis of herbarium specimens. It is also thought that the differences between the taxa might be a result of altitudinal variation in habitat. Attempts by Lakela to distinguish var. cordifolia and var. austrina on the basis of leaf dimensions and marginal dentation have been thwarted by continuous variation in these characteristics.” - Flora of North America, MOBOT, (VOL. 8) 

Any-whom’st’ve this is a stress post, and I should be studying for finals.