Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Plants in Early American Gardens - Maltese Cross

Maltese Cross (Lychnis chalcedonica)

Maltese Cross is an early summer-blooming perennial that bears tight clusters of bright scarlet, cross-shaped flowers on long stalks. It was an early import to the American colonies, and was listed in Philadelphia nurseryman Bernard McMahon's 1804 broadsheet as "Scarlet Lychnis." Thomas Jefferson sowed it in one of the oval beds at Monticello in 1807. The striking flowers attract butterflies and hummingbirds. Deer-resistant.

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