Monthly Archives: May 2012

May 13, 2012 · 11:42 am

Plant of the day: common woodland star

This delicate flower boasts five raggedy white petals on a long bare stem. Common woodland star (Lithophragma affine) is a member of the Saxifragaeae family, as was yesterdays post.  The woodland star is a little more “typical” of the family, with its elegant white flowers and long, mostly leafless stem. But because of its tendency to sprawl rather than grow upright, I wasn’t sure if my hunch that it was a saxifrage was right until I looked it up. It also lacks the multiplicity of obvious stamens mentioned in the previous post.

There is another very similar species in Marin – the hillside woodland star (Lithophragma heterophyllum). You can most easily distinguish the two because the hillside woodland star has a tendency to sprout little bulbs, or “bulblets,” in the joint where the leaf meets the stem. Also if you look at the back of the flower (the “hypanthium,” you can see that the common woodland star joins the stem gradually whereas hillside woodland star flattens off dramatically at the back, so the stem attaches on to a nearly flat surface like a pencil set on the middle of a plate.

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May 12, 2012 · 7:42 pm

Plant of the day: yerba de selva

Yerba de selva is one of those unassuming little plants that you see everywhere – but probably don’t know what it is. Whipplea modesta prefers forest glades and partially shady spots, where large groups of these many-armed plants often form a sprawling, semi-prostrate mat of stalks. Each stalk is dressed along its length with paired oval leaves that are noticeably hairy – their texture is slightly rough if you rub them between your fingers.

In the spring, yerba de selva sports little white heads of flowers. Each head is actually a cluster of tiny five-petaled blooms. The Peterson guide describes the flowers as petalless, so I had to do some research on that – technically, those things that look just like petals are actually specialized bracts (which are green on most plants). Another tricksy fact is that Yerba de selva is in the Saxifragaceae family, though this plant doesn’t at all have the look of a typical saxifrage, which pairs deeply lobed basal leaves with upright, airy spikes of delicate flowers. It does have the feature of having prominent stamens, roughly twice the number as there are “petals.” In many saxifrages those stamens are often offset so that they are even more prominent, clearly visible in the widely gaps between the petals. Click on the picture above to get a better look at what I mean.

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May 11, 2012 · 9:58 am

Plant of the day: flax

This delicate, pale blue flower is a common sight in sunny, grassy areas in the Bay Area. The distinctive form of flax makes it hard to confuse with anything else. Telling one flax from another is very tricky though! To identify Linum bienne versus Linum usitatissimum you need to get out your tweezers and hand lens and see whether the styles (the central female reproductive bits) are fused at the base. If they are not, then you have L. bienne.

Both species look very similar, with delicate petals and the darker veins that streak them being almost lavendar in hue. The five stamens’ anthers are a true, bright blue, and the many needle-like leaves cling closely to the stalk. L. bienne has smaller flowers, about 2cm across instead of 3cm.Sadly, this pretty little flower isn’t native; both species were introduced from the Mediterranean…

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May 10, 2012 · 8:08 am

Plant of the day: large-flowered star tulip

Here is another mariposa lily, this one seen in a low moist meadow near Bon Tempe lake. Calochortus uniflorus, or the large-flowered star tulip. You can tell it from the Oakland star tulip (which I wrote about last week) because it grows in wet meadows instead of on rocky slopes or damp hillsides. Both flowers have delicate, lightly hairy petals. Though the coloring can overlap, the large-flowered star tulip trends more towards purple while the Oakland star tulip is in the white to pale lavender range.

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May 9, 2012 · 9:06 am

Plant of the day: woodland strawberry

A happy sight for many a hiker, our native strawberry peeks from the edges of shrubs and woodlands. Not as tasty or as luscious as a storebought berry, this tiny fruit is better recognized for its good looks. Pretty white flowers with yellow centers are accented by a few dark green, serrated leaves. As spring moves into summer, the flowers give way to fruit, which are quickly nibbled by insects, rodents and other critters.

Fragaria vesca can be found across most of California. Marin is also home to the beach strawberry, that grows close to the coast – mostly in sandy places. In the northern and eastern parts of the state you also might see the very similar Fragaria virginiana, or mountain strawberry. And if the plant has yellow blooms instead of white, you may be looking at a non-native mock strawberry. This looks very similar to Fragaria species, but is actually in an entirely different genus!

 

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May 8, 2012 · 9:11 am

Plant of the day: sun cups

These showy, low-growing flowers are commonly found nestled in the grass of meadows, pastures and trailsides. Taraxia ovata are distinctive with their simple blossoms supported on long pale stalks above a circular mat of long oval leaves. Four bright yellow petals cup around many pollen-dusted stamen. Below the flowers, four pointed green sepals bend sharply down toward the ground so they are parallel with the stems.

Sun cups are found along the coast of California and Oregon. In many publications they are also known as Camissonia ovata.

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May 7, 2012 · 11:31 am

Plant of the day: spotted coralroot

Small, leafless coralroot plants may easily go unnoticed, as they blend in to the forest floor. But sharp-eyed hikers will spot these diminutive orchids growing in the understory, often beneath redwoods. What’s really nifty about Corallorhiza maculata is that they don’t photosynthesize – they don’t have any chlorophyll at all. Instead they depend entirely on mycorrhizal fungi for their food. The fungi, in turn, get much of their nutrients from a symbiotic relationship with nearby trees. Plants that feed on fungi in this way are called “mycotropic.”

In addition to spotted coralroot, striped coralroot also grows in Marin. Unlike the orchid-like flowers of its spotted cousin (which has several brownish petals above a pale tongue with dark burgandy patches) the petals of striped coralroot all look quite similar – and they are (you guessed it) noticeably striped.

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May 6, 2012 · 11:07 am

Plant of the day: calypso orchid

Peeking from the redwood duff, a calypso orchid. Calypso bulbosa, also known as a fairy slipper. This beautiful denizen of the woods is shy but not uncommon. It lifts its nodding head above the forest floor on a smooth purple stem, one or two green leaves lying flat at its base. And what a fearsome-looking flower!

The color can vary from pale pink to deep rose, but around here they are usually lilac-colored. A spikey crown flares upward like a punk-rocker halo. This crown is composed of petals, sepals and bracts all indistinguishable. Beneath, a lilac lobe juts forward, an awning over the burgandy-spotted pouch below. Tucked under the awning are anthers, which are designed to adhere to detach and stick to the backs of foraging insects. It turns out that Calypso orchids are tricksters – their shape suggests to passing insects that they may have nectar, but in fact, they don’t. Yet they depend entirely on this trick for pollination!

A Calypso orchid may live for up to five years (though usually less) and it dies back to its underground corm, or root-like structure, each summer. A new leaf is produced in the fall, and it flowers in the spring. It has a tremendously wide range. You can find it across western and northern United States, Canada, Japan and northern Europe.

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May 5, 2012 · 9:50 pm

Plant of the day: sticky monkey flower

Have you seen those pale orange flowered bushes that are common in the hills of Marin? Yes, the ones with the dark green and the tubular flowers with a flaring rim like a musical instrument. This is Mimulus aurantiacus (aka bush monkey flower or sticky monkey flower). You won’t find it in the Peterson guide, since it’s technically a bush not a wildflower – but the blooms are pretty and if you pick it for a bouquet you’ll learn where it got its name from when your hands come away sticky. It likes to grow in brushy areas and chaparral, flat places and narrow steep ravines.

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May 4, 2012 · 2:01 pm

Plant of the day: seep-spring monkey flower

True to its name, this cheerful yellow flower is most often found growing on moist hillsides, along streambanks, and in other wet places. With reddish spots displayed inside it’s splayed lower lip,  Mimulus guttatus (also called common monkey flower) is easy to spot. Its tubular yellow flowers are folded at their opening, like the mouth of a sock puppet. Though joined at the base, they split at their ends into five or six petal-like lobes (depending on whether or not the central lower petal is divided). The plant itself is often dinky (as few as 2 inches high) but it grows up to knee height – three feet if it’s really happy.

There are many other mimulus in the area, but this is the only one that is yellow and has smooth leaves. Tomorrow I’ll write about sticky monkeyflower: the other most common mimulus.

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