Wahlenbergia cernua flower

    Wahlenbergia cernua flower
    Author: Ivan Lätti
    Photographer: Judd Kirkel Welwitch

    The flower of Wahlenbergia cernua usually grows solitary, borne on a long stalk at a stem tip. The blue to nearly white flower is five-pointed, star-like with a shallow central bowl. It has a rather open bell-shape, hairy in the base, but not on the ovary.

    The petals are joined in the base of the cup, ovate in shape tapering to acute tips that curve outwards slightly and in picture fold in from the margins near their tips. There is no dark patch at the base of the corolla.

    The stamens that tend to wither soon after the flower opens have more or less vanished in picture. The stigma, performing after the male component, has three large, rounded lobes, bulging and blue on a straight, fleshy style. 

    Flowering happens at the end of spring to early summer (Manning, 2007; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist; iSpot).

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