The MGS Forum
Plant identification => Plant identification => Topic started by: gertrude on August 30, 2018, 09:45:09 AM
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Seen yesterday in Sibillini mountains, on the roadside, unable to ID from all our books.
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Having had no reply I posted this photo on Plant Idents (a FB page) and hey presto back came the answer - Melampyrum nemorosum
Apparently, Its an herbaceous flowering plant in the broomrape family, Orobanchaceae. The new leaves are blue, turning green as they mature.
How unusual is that?
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Very unusual, I didn't know that there were hemiparasitic plants producing green leaves in the broomrape family, so thank you for teaching me something new. today.
It looks lovely, I see that has been found a few times even here in Norway, probably accidentally imported with lumber etc. In some places it's placed on the 'Black list' , in other places it's described as a potentially attractive garden plant with low risk of spreading to the woods where we already have other Melampyrum species, a couple of them are very common, but they haven't got the conspicuous blue colour.