1999 Theodore Klein Plant Award Winner
by Winston C. Dunwell

Amsonia hubrechtii - Arkansas Blue Star, Arkansas Amsonia, Hubricht's Amsonia

Amsonia hubrechtii, syn A. hubrichtii is a fine leaved plant known as much for it's orange-yellow fall foliage as for it's attractive Spring blue flowers. The foliage creates a fine textured round airy plant. As it's common name indicates this plant is found native in Arkansas and surrounding states. It's native habitat is well-drained creek banks and bottomlands, but it performs admirably as a landscape plant in Kentucky. It has been observed in Kentucky landscapes growing in, dry shade, moist shade, moist sunny, and dry sunny sites. There are a number of related species that are also interesting as landscape plants. How the confusion in the spelling of the species name came about isn't known. The spelling A. hubrechtii was common to plant catalogs at the time when it was selected as a Theodore Klein Plant Award Winner. It would seem that A. hubrichtii is the correct spelling considering The Missouri Botanic Garden Plant Finder http://www.mobot.org/gardeninghelp/plantfinder/codem/W810.shtml describes it's species name as "This species was named after Leslie Hubricht who first discovered it growing in the wild in the early 1940s.".