Adam's-needle

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Adam's-needle

Adam's-needle inflorescence

Adam's-needle leaf fibers

Adam's-needle leaves

Adam's-needle leaves and leaf fibers

Adam's-needle flowers

Adam's-needle habit

Adam's-needle

Adam's-needle fruit

Morphology

Trunk

Aboveground stems essentially absent.

Leaves

Persistent, rosulate at end of caudex, simple; petiole absent; blade linear to linear-lanceolate, 16 to 32 inches long, .4 to 1.6 inch wide, usually becoming bent medially, leathery, margins entire, green or white, more or less plane, with tread-like fibers, apex acuminate to needle-like, surfaces green to grayish green, glabrous, not glaucous or slightly glaucous.

Flowers

Inflorescence arising from rosette, panicles, erect, 40-100-flowered; peduncles 20 to 80 inches, minutely pubescent; pedicels .4 to 1.2 inch, minutely pubescent. Flowers bisexual, radially symmetric, spreading to pendent, bell-shaped; tepals 6, distinct, white to greenish white, more or less fleshy or not, lanceolate to elliptic, 1.2 to 2 inches long, .5 to 1.2 inch wide, pubescent, apex acute; stamens 6, .6 to 1.9 inch long; pistil 1; styles 3, connate; stigmas 3, tapered.

Fruit

August-September; capsules, brown, woody, cylindric to inversely pear-shaped, more or less constricted at middle, 1.4 to 1.6 inch long, .6 to .8 inch wide, glabrous; seeds 200-300, black, flattened, more or less triangular, .24 to .35 inch long, .2 to .28 inch wide, dull.

Ecology

Habitat

Roadsides, cemeteries, old home sites, thickets, tallgrass prairies.

Distribution

East 1/3 of Kansas

Additional Notes

Synonyms

Alternative scientific names that have been used for this plant.