There’s a native patch of Cusp Gayfeather (Liatris mucronata) in our front yard. This is one of the prettiest wildflowers I know and it’s not common. The patch near our house is the only one I know of our property and I’ve only seen it in two other places in our area.

The plant is also known as Blazing Star. I wrote about it two years ago, here. It’s a perennial and blooms in the late summer and into the winter. It seems to need rain to bloom and our recent rains resulted in a good show.

The plants are surrounded by tall grass but can’t be missed because of the striking spike of color. They’re in a fairly small area, about 12 feet on a side. Each plant consists of a stiff, upright stem topped by many tufted, purple flowers. They seem to lean over with the weight of the flowers. They are good butterfly attractors.

Cusp Gayfeather

Here’s a tight clump of almost a dozen of the gayfeathers. These are about a foot tall and you get a sense of scale from the Prickly Pear (Opuntia) pad on the right.

A Clump of Cusp Gayfeathers

Here’s a closeup of a single flower stalk. You can see the individual small flowers, each shaped like a 5-pointed star.  You can also see how the flowers start opening at the top of the stem and then move down. At the bottom are the flowers just starting to open.

Cusp Gayfeathers Closeup