Prairie Dock (silphium terebinthinaceum)
Today I was wowed by this tall, skinny plant with blonde topknots standing head and shoulders above everybody else in the brush. The spindly, towering plants (over 10 feet) with buttercupy flowers at the top are in the aster family and sometimes answer to the name silphium rosinweed because the stems produce a gummy resin when cut that smells like turpentine - "terebinthinaceum" = "turpentine like".
This herbaceous perennial is as tall underground as above, its long taproot reaching way down to deep reserves of water, making it extremely drought resistant.
As small and spare as the flowers are on top, the scalloped leaves at the base of the plant are enormous - eighteen inches wide and 2 feet long - orienting themselves in a north-south direction, with the broad part of the blade facing east and west to maximize sunlight for photosynthesis. This adaptation also minimizes water loss due to transpiration.
“Truly we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood.”
Mary Oliver
This plant has done everything it can for longevity. Prairie dock is believed to be among the longest-lived species of the prairie - some living more than 100 years.
I don’t know why I never noticed it before, but I’m pretty sure it will be here again next year... and the next, and the next, and the next.
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