Ornamental purple millet?

else maybe some type of purple ornamental grass?

Has it gone to seed yet? You mention the top looks like grass does when it seeds. If it's millet, it might look a bit different from grass when it seeds. If it looks like grass, maybe it is indeed an ornamental type of grass. Maybe search ornamental grasses on the internet.

Glen

Here is a link that might be useful: Purple millet

No... the foliage is not like purple millet... its more like a regular leaf then grass.
Only the top look kind of like grass... the rest is just a very narrow tall plant..

- Andrew

Some kind of Amaranthus? 'Intense Purple' maybe?

I'm going to take a shot, only 'cause I'm trying to think of purple plants.

Purple Basil?

Shauna

Here is a link that might be useful: Burpee's Purple Basil

No not purple basil (I have some and this isn't it) but Amaranthus Intense Purple may actually be it... There doesn't appear to be many good pictures of this plant on the internet... this one has been a lot of trouble. I have spent roughly 7 hours looking for it. I'm giving up and taking it to a horticultural meeting tomorrow.

-Andrew

Plecanthrus? (Is that how you spell it?) I saw a purple something by that name at the nursery last week - on sale!

It's too bad that there wasn't a tag somewhere in the flat!

okay so it started out looking like some kind of weird ornamental grass... now the stem is woody and almost half a pencil thick... the little tiny flowers have become almost like two leaves sandwiched together with a single seed in between them. The whole plant is a dark rich purple bordering on maroon. Most are 12 to 24 inches with tons of these little sandwich leaves and seeds.

I'm going to google some more tonight but this one is really starting to bug me so any suggestions will help a ton...

- Andrew

This is really baffling me to Andrew. LOL, is there anyway you can take a photo and scan it, I gotta know!

Sharon

I'm going to scan it at work soon... the seed pods hold a single seed. The seed pods look like two purple leaves sandwiched together. Its mostly a single stem plant... when the pods get heavey the whole thing kind of droops over. When they dry out they go really light brown.

It really is quite an intense purple/red plant.

Probably a long shot, but this wouldn't be some sort of (presumably ornamental) dock or sorrel(Rumex sp.), would it? The description of the color and flower heads makes me wonder, and depending on how its grown, the leaves on docks can be very reduced. If this is a possibility, however remote, try googling Rumex crispus, R. triangulivalvis, R. acetosella for starters.

ABgardeneer,

This is the closest I've been all summer to an answer... I think you have me on the right track finally. It looks a lot like the pictures of Rumex Triangulivalvis, or R. Acetosella. on the top of the plant.

Triangulivalvis has way to narrow of a leaf though. They actual leaves on my purple plants are wider triangular shaped not a long thin leaves.

R. Acetosella stem appears to be green. And the colouring of the pods is slightly different. I'm dealing with a completely purple plant.

R. Crispus is almost right but again the foliage isn't even close to the right shape and the height is way to big.

I'll probably be googling Rumex all night :-)

Thank you

- Andrew

well it has wider triangular leaves like Rumex vesicarius buy it is completely purple... I'm getting there.

What colour was the flower when it was blooming, was it all purple too?

The flower is amost impossible to see... its really small and is just the begining of the seed pods plus a little pollen on the top. There are hundreds of them at the growing tip. There is no flower to really speak of. The pollen is more red then purple.

I'm going to get a picture tomorrow... this is bugging me too much.

Andrew,
How about Rumex flexuosus, a dock species native to New Zealand, that is being sold by Gardens North?
There is a photo at the Gardens North site, attached.
Lori

Here is a link that might be useful: Gardens North catalogue

Lori,

The leaves are too long and narrow by a lot.

Okay, I finally got one of the rolls of film developed from earlier this summer... This is what the thing looked like early July..

{{gwi:752152}}

Now this was taken quite a while ago... They filled out quite a bit and look like Rumex on the top.. Some of the leaves have gone a really deep purple while the tops are still kind of a bright magenta purple as show in this picture.

Okay, now that there's a picture... have a look at Orache, Atriplex hortensis - grown as a salad vegetable (seet the attached link).
If you google it, and click on "Images", you'll see a fair bit of variation in leaf shape and color - perhaps it's variable, or perhaps some of the photos are misidentified/misclassified - don't know. Anyway, I'd suggest it's that or some other Atriplex sp. (Chenopodiaceae).
Lori

Here is a link that might be useful: orache

Here's something else that may or may not be useful... My weed book says that Atriplex hortensis could be mistaken at maturity for Rumex crispus - both have large, reddish fruiting stems and lance-shaped leaves - but the shape of the fruit differs - 3-sided for curled dock, and flat for orache.
By the way, it may be that red/purple colored ones have been selected for cultivation - whereas the ones you see as weeds may have plain green leaves.

We have a winner... Atriplex hortensis it appears to be... so far this is the closest I've been all summer on this one... That is it is definately closer then Rumex.

Rumex was close but every single picture of Rumex I've seen had very long narrow leaves and were ususally green from the start or had green stems...

I'm still not 100% sure but Atriplex hortensis foliage looks exactly the same... There are 4 pages of images when I used google's image search and most of the images look very similar if not exactly the same as what I have in my front yard...

Now I know which seed pack to go looking for when I'm at my father-inlaws greenhouse next time.

Thank you big time...

"my father-inlaws greenhouse"

Oh? Commercial one? Andrew, do tell!

No its not a commercial one... but its a nice size.

He grows stuff for the local nurseries. We (as an extended family) share all sorts of plants that come out of it. This year I traded some of my Lobelia for all sorts of other plants.

Andrew, doesn't it feel good to finally know what you've got ;)

I bought some Atriplex hortensis 'Red Flash' seeds a couple of years ago from Patricks Studio, they did very well with wintersowing, however, those dang flea beetles enjoyed them more than I. I'm going to have to try again and dust them with rotentone next time.

I'm sure you can finally rest now ;) LOL

Sharon

Sharon,

It was starting to really annoy me... LOL

I'm glad I finally have an answer on it... now I know it will most likely be safe to store some seeds over winter and they most likely won't take over my front flower beds. They sure are pretty as far as foliage goes... Extremely bright purple. Next year I don't think I'll put them beside my Rudbeckia. Yellow, brown, red and purple is not the best combination. LOL

Andrew