Native, gorgeous, and very much under appreciated

Let's just start with  photo:

Meet Mentzelia decapetala! (EDIT: Panayoti says this is actually Mentzelia nuda, and I think he is right.) I've been growing this plant a couple years, and it is officially one of my top plant crushes. It is native to a big swath of the middle of the US, basically the plains states... Notably tolerant of harsh, dry conditions, I feared it would simply rot in cool, soggy Michigan (which has been even cooler and soggier than usual this year) but I couldn't have been more wrong:

It has settled right in and has been pumping out these gorgeous flowers since the beginning of July. There are only two things you should know about this plant before getting yourself one: First, it is an evening bloomer. For me, the flowers open around 4 or 5 in the afternoon. Which I honestly rather like... there is something charming about the garden taking on a different character in the evening, and of course the pale blooms just glow in the evening light. The other thing is that, like many prairie plants, it is a bit floppy, probably especially so in my wet soil. That's easily solved, though, simply cut it back early in the season and it will grow into a nice bushy, compact, three-foot sphere of these amazing blooms.

Here is my other beloved and much under appreciated US native:

Salvia azurea. I LOVE THAT SHADE OF BLUE SO MUCH!!!!
Ahem. Sorry about that. Let me calm myself.
But you have to admit, that is a pretty darn dynamite shade of blue.

I always used to think that all the really pretty salvias weren't hardy. But this is the exception to that. S. azurea is native, again, mostly to the plains states, though the range comes further East, and it is an absolutely tough, hardy, and effortless to grow plant. It is a late summer/fall bloomer... and how about that luscious shade of blue with some good hardy mums? Can't be beat.

I love this plant so much that I have (of course...) started doing a little breeding with it. The plant pictured above is my very earliest flowering one, quite a few weeks earlier than most of the species. I'm also breeding for shorter plants that don't flop over, which the species is pretty prone to.

This is my best seedling for that trait -- a nice compact three feet tall. You can see the more usual loose, sprawly habit of the plants in the background... This one will be later blooming as you can see, but I'm very happy with that growth habit.

And then unexpected things pop up, as they do in breeding projects...

White flowers! I'm not sure how I feel about that exactly... I mean, the blue color is what I love so much about this plant. But the white IS kind of pretty too. What do you think? Would you ever grow the white one, or stick with the blue?