Native Plants

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Thursday - April 29, 2010

From: Rosanky, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Wildflowers
Title: Life cycle of Big Bend bluebonnet from Rosanky TX
Answered by: Barbara Medford

QUESTION:

I have searched and searched and need to find the life cycle of a Big Bend Bluebonnet for a school project, but have been unable to find it. If there is a website that would have this information, please share it with me. Thank you very much,

ANSWER:

We didn't find a webpage on the life cycle of Lupinus havardii (Big Bend bluebonnet) either; however, we can tell you that the life cycles of all 6 of the official Texas Bluebonnets are very similar. Follow the above link to the page on that bluebonnet in our Native Plant Database, and learn where it grows. Then, go to our How-To Article How To Grow Bluebonnets, which will tell you when they drop their seed, begin to show a rosette in mid-winter, bloom, and set seed. They are a winter annual, so their life cycle is one year long. We also found this Garden Guides.com website on the Seven Stages of a Bluebonnet.

This USDA Plant Profile shows the Big Bend Bluebonnet growing in two counties in (where else?) the Big Bend. Because it is so far south, the seeds might start to germinate a little earlier, the rosettes appear a little sooner, and the blooms show up before some of the bluebonnets farther north in Texas. But the schedule will be the same, and the order in which the stages happen the same.

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