2008 April 5
2008 April 5.... or so we thought. I looked through all of my books ... no flower like that. So I called in the big guns at E-Flora. I found out that this is no flower at all but ...
"It's a fungal infection of Arabis plants. It turns the upper leaves yellow and makes them appear like a flower. Apparently insects are drawn to the "pseudo-flowers" and leave with a nice coating of fungal spores. I've been fooled by these in the past too. They are quite common in Arabis. I'm not sure what type of Arabis it is though, maybe holboellii." -- Jamie Fenneman --Some things just aren't what they appear to be!
Isn't this the most amazing and interesting thing? I hope you are keeping your eyes peeled!
Terry Taylor has since, been kind enough to get back to me on a probable identification of the fungus. It is a rust fungus called:
Please check the link for some very interesting information!
