Central PA Wildflower ID

[RWL]

What is the name of the blue / white / lavender colored wildflowers growing along the roadsides currently in central PA. A couple of us at work had heard them called "Phlox", but they don't look like the Phlox in my wildflower book and I can't find anything else that matches them.

The plants are about 18-24" tall. The flowers have 4 petals in cruciate shape, and are maybe 3/4" in diamter. The flowers are in clusters at the top of the stems. The leaves are narrow and elongated.

I don't have any place to post a photo or I would, BUT anybody who lives in central PA will know the flowers I'm talking about because they're all over the place right now.

RWL

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[Cereus-validus.....]

Veronica?

[Travis]

Post a pic to alt.binaries.pictures.gardens.

[SugarChile]

Sounds like Dame's Rocket:

[Pat Kiewicz]

I agree with Sue/SugarChile: sounds like Dame's Rocket (Hesperis matronalis), a non-native (but widely spread) plant in the cabbage family.

[RWL]

.........snip..........

Dame's Rocket (Hesperis matronalis) it is! Thanks. I went back and looked for the name in my wildflower books, but only one - the little paper back guide even had the name. The drawing in that book was ok, but it had it classified as a white flower, and most of the ones around here are blue, so I missed it. The description does mention that it's sometimes incorrectly identified as Phlox, which explains why some of us had heard it referred to as Phlox.

Thanks for all who responded

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[Mike]

One of the things I miss about eastern PA - the roadside flowers. State Transportation doesn't actually plant them, do they? Here in HI they've actually taken to poisoning roadside grass for fear of the dry-heat leading to wild fires : (

[RWL]

Not most of the widlflowers. There are areas of divided highways where PenDOT has planted wildflowers in the median. Where they've done this, there's a nice colorful mixture early, which later is dominated by Cosmos. In subsequent years only the purple coneflowers seem to return. I went down the strip of Rt 15 south of Selinsgrove today where they've done this in years past, but I didn't notice if anything was growing in the median besides grass this year.

RWL

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[Suzy O]

The difference between Dame's Rocket and Phlox is the # of petals -- DR has

[Mike]

I've lived in several states and PA does seem to be distinct in this way. I spent a week in West Texas and that is the only place that approaches PA.

On the to do list over my recent vacation was to initiate a frivolous lawsuit against a government agency. It was to read Me vs. Hawaii state Dept of Transportation. Je Accuse the director of phytocide. Never quite got around to it.