Dame’s Rocket vs. Native Phlox
May 19, 2010 by Becky
Filed under Customer FAQ's, Species and Product Overview, What's blooming?
It’s early to mid-May and we will inevitably get a call or two again this season from customers wanting the beautiful wild Phlox that they see blooming now in ditches. What they are referring to is, of course, not native, but rather a Eurasian plant that has escaped cultivation and now threatens to smother native plants due to its aggressive nature: Dame’s Rocket (Hesperis matronalis).
Dame’s Rocket does indeed look a lot like native Phlox. Phlox divaricata, the Wild Blue Phlox was blooming a few weeks ago and enjoys the same wetter soil and woodland-edge habitat as Dame’s Rocket. Phlox pilosa – Prairie Phlox is just beginning to bloom now as well. But one distinguishing feature of the two species enables anyone to easily tell them apart: four petals on the Dame’s Rocket flower; five petals on a true Phlox:
invasive Dame's Rocket - 4 flower petals
native Prairie Phlox - 5 petals
native Wild Blue Phlox - 5 petals
Here are some more photos of the Dame’s Rocket to aid in easy identification:
Dame's Rocket leaves/stem - mid-May in MN
Dame's Rocket can reach heights of 4 feet
You'll often see a large group of plants due to its aggressive nature
If you have this growing in or near your native plantings, get it out! And encourage your neighbors not to dig up ditch plants for transplanting and not to buy seeds/plants, as it is still commercially available!
Thanks for the info on Dame’s Rocket vs “true Pflox”.
I’ll go out in the field tomorrow and see if my “plants” have
4 or 5 petals.
HI Paul. Great. Glad we could help. That’s the whole point of our blogs!
This article was so helpful to me too. I have always loved the “wild phlox” that grows in the ditches here is Southern Wisconsin. In fact, I checked out this website to see if there was any info on gathering seed as I now have two plants in my ditch. Well, after seeing the 4 petals and foliage on the plants, I now realize that I actually have Dames Rocket and should not be planting any seeds…lol….
HI Lynn. Great – glad the blog helped. Yeah, it can be a tricky one. I didn’t know the difference before I started working at Prairie Moon!
Do you have any tips for contending with the sentimental attachment people have to the familiar weed? How can I urge people NOT to propagate something they see as very pretty & “wild”? Any advice would be welcome, we literally just talked about this plant 2 weeks ago here in Kansas.
Hi Nikki. I think something as simple as showing them a photograph or bringing them to an area where an invasive like Dame’s Rocket is completely taking over. How could any less-aggressive native plant survive in that thicket? If they like Jack-in-the-Pulpit, or Trilliums, or other plants they remember from their childhood – I think you can make a strong case that those plants will quickly be gone from a woodland edge if they let the ‘pretty invasives’ like Dame’s Rocket do their thing and continue to set seed and spread by rhizomes.
!
I think with invasives, woodlands and wetlands often suffer the most because it is so difficult to get in there and control the invasives and restore it back to a healthy eco-system with a diversity of natives. For anyone that cares about our natural areas and/or the wildlife that needs them, I think that is argument enough! Plus, there are SO many equally as attractive natives to buy and propogate! I just wish the average garden center would carry them! Things are changing though – my local garden center had a few natives this year! Tucked in the back of the greenhouse and at outrageous prices, but a good change none-the-less