“Vervain Among the Dunes”
“In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.”
― Rachel Carson
I get great enjoyment photographing plants and animals in areas away from home and the sand dunes of Sauble Beach are no exception. I came across many plants which survive well in the dry sand dunes which bound the back of the beach. Many still need to be looked up and this one surprised me. A simple Blue Vervain in an unexpected environment.
Close to home, Swamp Vervain is fairly common but not Blue Vervain. The plants are similar, but differ in the shape of the flower spike. I was also expecting Blue Vervain to be more of a meadow or wetland flower, based on my experience, so to find it in the dunes was interesting. It did seem quite healthy in the dry environment, but I expect even the dunes hold surprising amount of water this year with high lake levels. The conditions may have been just right and nature continues to amaze.
Nikon D800
Tamron SP AF 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro 1:1 (272ENII)@90mm
1/60 sec, f/10.0, ISO 200
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I’d not heard of this species, which I take it from searching on the Internet is Verbena hastata. Sauble Beach sounds like a great place; I looked it up, too.
This may very well be the same species, but the flower spikes seemed much narrower than those which grow locally. I posted about that last week. I’ll have to keep researching.
https://edlehming.wordpress.com/2017/08/05/swamp-vervain-verbena-hastata/
I did a search for “blue verbena” and the hits I got were for Verbena hastata. Of course the common name might apply to more than one species. And, as you intimated, individual plants in a given species can look rather different. Good luck in sorting this out.