This week for Flora and Fauna Friday it’s another pollinator approved native wetland wildflower, Clustered Bushmint (Hyptis alata).
Clustered Bushmint is a perennial wildflower found all throughout the Southeastern coastal plain, including the Lowcountry of South Carolina and Edisto Island. Its favorite places to populate are the sandy slopes of sunny dirt road ditches or saturated swales sunk in beside the highway. It loves wet acidic sandy soils and full sun. Clustered Bushmint grows to about chest high with a narrow woody stem and a sparse collection of small leaves. Sometimes they bare a single straight stem, other times it branches broadly. However, that stem is not as barren as it sounds as it will soon be ringed in flower-heads from the first foot above the ground all the way to its tip. The flower-heads of Clustered Bushmint are pale green and spherical with a whorl of bracts collaring them from below. Atop this flower-head poke out individual flowers, tiny and white with magenta polka-dots. Clustered Bushmint blooms from August through September and is adored by pollinators of all shapes and sizes. Its tiny flowers are easy for flies, beetles, and wasps to sip from but their clustered presentation creates a perfect landing pad for larger and heavier butterflies and bumblebees to clamber onto.
