BLUE MISTFLOWER (Conoclinium coelestinum)
WHAT FLORIDA NATIVE PLANT IS BLOOMING TODAY?: BLUE MISTFLOWER (Conoclinium coelestinum)
not to be confused with nonnative annual ageratum (Ageratum conyzoides) sold as a bedding plant for flower gardens.
Can be aggressive as it self seeds, but provides nectar for bees and butterflies, especially late in the season when not a lot of other things are blooming. Seeds are favored by birds.
Learn: http://www.fnps.org/plants/plant/conoclinium-coelestinum
Where does it grow in Florida? http://www.florida.plantatlas.usf.edu/Plant.aspx?id=935
Seeds available: http://www.floridawildflowers.com/products/Conoclinium-coelestinum-%252d-Blue-Mistflower.html
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What Florida Native Plant Is Blooming Today?™ 
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Been seeing this all over the preserves in Lee County – I love the color, and you’re right, the pollinators really dig it.
– Erin “Dogfennel” White 🙂
Hi Erin. As you can see from my advatar, “dog” fennel is right up my alley. I love all the dog associated plants. Fleabane, dogwood, Hoarhound!
Mistflower is another one of those great plants that bloom in our “winter”, providing for those snowbirds that hang out here with the rest of us.
Thanks for stopping by!
Do you know of how to distinguish the native from the nonnative? Google search doesn’t yield much… so I thought I’d ask the experts.
😉
Thank you!
Hope the following helps. It is very confusing for we who are novices and not botanists. It made my head spin 😉
Here is how it was explained to me: It follows two different plant identification keys under the Asteraceae family:
The Blue Mist Flower, Conoclinium, is a member of Key 4 (Pappus of capillary or plumose bristles) Here is a pic of the achene http://plants.usda.gov/gallery/standard/coco13_003_shp.jpg (it’s fuzzy-like)
and the Blue Mink, Ageratum houstonianum, is a member of Key 5 (Pappus of scales, a few awns, very short chaffy bristles, a mere crown or absent) Drawing of the achene here: http://wp.me/a33WE5-jp
There is a third similar plant that is an invasive. It supposedly smells like cat urine (ewwwwwwww). You can find details and pictures on that one at http://www.floridainvasives.org/Heartland/PraxelisEasyIDflyer2.pdf
Hopefully you can reach this thread on facebook where I learned the differences and it was discussed at length. That’s were I learned to distinguish the native mistflower from Ageratum and it involved using a tweezer 😮
https://www.facebook.com/groups/FloridaBotany/permalink/481830018598462/