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Monkey Flower By: Heidi Y. Thompson |
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| Mimulus ringens, commonly known as the monkey flower, is one of the many flowers found in Wildwood Park from the flowering plant phylum, Anthophyta. The genus name of the monkey flower, Mimulus, in Latin means a little mimus, which is a buffoon or a mime. The flower resembles a small, grinning, ape-like face, which hints at the name monkey flower. The plant is in the Figwort family. The flower is blue-violet or lavender in color externally, with two ridges in front with purple red dots and nearby two yellow areas finely mottled with brown. Erect or curved backward, two pairs of stamens and two platelike sensitive stigmas are found in the flower. One characteristic of the monkey flower is that it can tolerate more sun than some of the lighter-colored varieties of its genus. The monkey flowers are aquatic and wetland vascular plants and live near water. They mainly grow in clay, loam, sand or peat and can reach 1-2 feet in height. The flowers bloom from late June to early September, ripening their capsules for fruit in early autumn. Written fall 2000, as a service learning project for Dr. Gary Coté's Biology 102 class at Radford University. Copyright Pathways for Radford. |
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