Vernonia noveboracensis Edible larger-leaved alternative to creeping fig

larger-leaved alternative to creeping fig appeals

almost bluish-white beneath

over handsome gray-green

and the whole shrub stands upright and a little spare

though centuries of cultivation have carried Lantana camara into warm gardens and roadsides around the globe until the plant is now genuinely pantropic

Vernonia noveboracensis Edible larger-leaved alternative to creeping figIronweed earns the name twice over. The stems are stiff enough to stand through a hurricane season without staking, and the seedheads that follow the flowers rust to the exact color of weathered iron. But the reason to grow Vernonia noveboracensis is the purple: not the tidy lavender of garden asters but a saturated, almost fluorescent violet that arrives in late July and holds into October, riding five to eight feet up on strong green stems above a