Sharpwing Monkey Flower Gardens in Chinese Monkey Year Theme Gardening

Summary: North American sharpwing monkey flower gardens in eastern Canada and in the eastern United States toast Americanized Chinese monkey year theme gardening.

sharpwing monkey flower (Mimulus alatus), a native North American perennial, growing wild in Claude Moore Colonial Farm Park at Turkey Run Farm, near Potomac River in Fairfax County, northern Virginia; July 22, 2013: Fritz Flohr Reynolds (fritzflohrreynolds), CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

North American sharpwing monkey flower gardens advertise simian allusions in monkey face-like floral lips, in accordance with Americanized Chinese monkey year theme gardening plans from Feb. 8, 2016, to Jan. 27, 2017.

The native perennial bears the common name sharpwing monkey flower and the scientific name Mimulus alatus (small mime, winged) because of winged stems and monkey-like corollas. The province of Ontario in eastern Canada and 29 states, along with the District of Columbia, in the eastern United States consider sharpwing monkey flowers natives.

The lopseed relative in the Phrymaceae family demands distribution ranges in wetland edges to banks, bogs, ditches, marshes, meadows, ponds, rivers, springs, streams, swamps and woodlands. It expects neutral to slightly acidic soil pH (power of hydrogen) ranges of 5.6 to 7.5 in occasionally flooded, organic matter-rich, partly shaded to sunlit wetlands.

Horizontal, stem-like, underground rhizomes and taproots find air and moisture pore spaces, macronutrients and micronutrients in temperatures below minus 23 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 5 degrees Celsius).

Sharpwing monkey flowers generate mature 1- to 3-foot (0.31- to 0.91-meter) by 0.75- to 1.5-foot (0.23- to 0.46-meter) habits on four-angled, hollow, smooth, square, straight stems. Their straight up-and-down stems always have thin wings at the stem angles, oftentimes hint of yellow-green in bright sunlight and dried-out soils and sometimes hold branches. The hairless, scentless stems include bilaterally symmetrical, bisexual, hairy, short-stalked, unscented flowers at leaf axil angles with stems and hairless, oppositely arranged, toothed, unscented, well-stalked leaves.

Sharpwing monkey flower gardens juggle 2- to 4-inch (5.08- to 10.16-centimeter) by 2-inch (5.08-centimeter) leaves with narrow-winged, 1.2-inch (3.05-centimeter) petioles for Americanized Chinese monkey year theme gardening.

June- to September-blooming flowers keep near dentate to serrate, lance-shaped to oval, sharp-pointed, sharp-tipped foliage in United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) zones 5 to 8. They look like blue, pink or violet 0.99-inch- (2.5-centimeter-) long, yellow-bearded snapdragons with five-pointed, five-toothed, tubular, 0.67-inch (1.7-centimeter) calyxes, white-banded yellow throats and 0.19-inch- (5-millimeter) pedicels. White-haired, 0.59-inch- (1.5-centimeter-) long corollas maintain a lower lip with three outward-spreading, rounded lobes and an upper lip with two lobes spreading backward to the side. They nudge two long and two short stamens with brown, 0.04- to 0.12-inch (1- to 3-millimeter) anthers and 0.24- to 0.28-inch (6- to 7-millimeter) white filaments.

North American sharpwing monkey flower gardens offer Americanized Chinese monkey year theme gardening one-stop pollination with pollen-bearing male and seed-bearing female reproductive parts on every flower.

Foliage and nectar pull Elaphria chalcedonia midget moth caterpillars and bumblebees (Bombus pensylvanicus) to sharpwing monkey flowers, described by Scottish botanist William Aiton (1731-Feb. 2, 1793).

Birds and insects quicken seed development and dispersal near monkey flowers' hairless, white, 0.28-inch (7-millimeter) styles, light green, oval-shaped, 0.24-inch (6-millimeter) ovary and two flattened stigmas. Bee-, bird-, butterfly- and caterpillar-friendly, deer-resistant, low-maintenance sharpwing monkey flowers reproduce by the germination of viable black seeds released from their explosive, 0.39-inch- (1-centimeter-) long capsules. They support feeding chains and food webs by serving nectar and pollen and sustain wetlands by stopping soil erosion and surface runoff and by supplying groundcover.

American sharpwing monkey flower gardens team up with candelabra and monkey puzzle trees, monkey grasses and square-stemmed monkey flowers in Americanized Chinese monkey year theme gardening.

sharpwing monkey flower (Mimulus alatus) in Boyle Park, Little Rock, Pulaski County, central Arkansas; July 16, 2012: Eric in SF, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

sharpwing monkey flower (Mimulus alatus) growing wild in Claude Moore Colonial Farm Park at Turkey Run Farm, near Potomac River in Fairfax County, northern Virginia; July 22, 2013: Fritz Flohr Reynolds (fritzflohrreynolds), CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mimulus_alatus_-_Winged_Monkeyflower_2.jpg

sharpwing monkey flower (Mimulus alatus) in Boyle Park, Little Rock, Pulaski County, central Arkansas; July 16, 2012: Eric in SF, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mimulus_alatus_2.jpg

For further information:

Aiton, William. 1789. "Mimulus alatus." Hortus Kewensis; Or, A Catalogue of the Plants Cultivated in the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew. Vol. II Octandria-Monadelphia: pages 361-362. London UK: George Nicol, M.DCC.LXXXIX.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/4864779
Available via Missouri Botanical Garden Library's Botanicus Digital Library @ http://www.botanicus.org/page/875545

Marriner, Derdriu. 2 January 2016. "Chinese Monkey Year Theme Gardening With Monkey Puzzle Tree Gardens." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/01/chinese-monkey-year-theme-gardening.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 3 January 2016. "Chinese Monkey Year Theme Gardening With Candelabra Tree Gardens." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/01/chinese-monkey-year-theme-gardening_3.html

"Mimulus alatus." Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center > Plant Database.
Available @ http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=MIAL2

"Mimulus alatus Aiton." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/29201065

"Mimulus alatus Aiton Sharpwing Monkeyflower." United States Department of Agriculture > Natural Resources Conservation Service > Plant Profile.
Available @ https://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=MIAL2

Tenaglia, Dan. "Mimulus alatus Ait." Missouri Plants.
Available @ http://www.missouriplants.com/Blueopp/Mimulus_alatus_page.html