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Amsonia tomentosa
Also called Woolly Amosonia
Woolly bluestar is a small, woody perennial from the desert Southwest of the US and northern Mexico, with erect stems under half a metre tall and white-to-blue tinted flowers. It is grown mainly as a drought-tolerant garden plant in warm, dry, sunny sites.
Amsonia tomentosa is a species of flowering plant native to the southwestern United States (S California, S Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, W Texas) and northern Mexico (Chihuahua). Its common names include woolly bluestar and gray amsonia.
Amsonia tomentosa is a short, woody plant with many erect stems rarely reaching half a meter in height. The plant has two forms, a green glabrous (hairless) form, and a gray woolly form. The leaves are oval but pointed, and about 3 centimeters long. The flowers are white with a green or blue tint. They are tubular at the base and have flat faces with five petals. The flowers often come clumped in a cyme inflorescence. The fruits are podlike follicles that may separate into sections, each bearing a seed.
Among the Zuni people, a compound poultice of the root of the tomentosa variety is applied with much ceremony to rattlesnake bite.
Fringed bluestar · Hubricht's bluestar · Jones' bluestar · Kearney's bluestar · Blue star · Eastern bluestar · Feltleaf bluestar · Bluestar
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Amsonia tomentosa by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
