This little plant stands along the trail like a tiny, tiered pagoda. The upper leaves are a deep purple, but despite its name, purple deadnettle (Lamium purpureum, also known as henbit) doesn’t look at all dead.
The square stem and the shape of its leaves and flowers give it away as a member of the mint family. Purple deadnettle is native to Europe and Asia but has naturalized in California and many parts of the US. The young leaves are edible and used in salads and stir-fries.
Filed under Edible, Non-native, Plant of the day
Pale pink, heart-shaped flowers are displayed above a feathery green mound of leaves. This is Pacific bleeding hearts (Dicentra formosa): one of the most distinctive blooms around. The flowers truly do resemble hearts–the upcurved shoulders look like valentines’ hearts, while a tracery of pink veins calls to mind the anatomical reference as well.
Pacific bleeding hearts are found in most of California, and north through the coastal states into Canada. Despite their unusual shape, this little flower is in the poppy family!
Filed under Native, Plant of the day
Common woodland star is a raggedy-petalled, white little flower–look for it in meadows, brushy slopes and forests. The long slender stalk is reddish and grows up to two feet tall. It is sprinkled with round, scallop-edged leaves below, and a few white flowers above. This is Lithophragma affine, a native to California and Oregon
Hillside woodland star is another very similar species of Lithophragma that’s found in the area, but the green cup of sepals (where the flower joins the stalk) is dramatically flattened. With hillside woodland star, it is tapered or funnel-shaped.
The Mendocino Indians chewed the root for colds and stomachaches.
Filed under Native, Plant of the day
Deep in the shaded understory, small star-shaped flowers gleam. Each spray of white blooms is arranged above symmetrical rows of corn-like leaves. This is star-flowered false Solomon’s seal (Maianthemum stellatum).
This pretty little flower is found across much of North America, and goes by a whole boatload of names including false lily of the valley, starry false Solomon’s-seal, star-flowered Solomon’s-seal, starry Solomon plume, starry smilac, and spikenard. The Nuxalk Indians of British Columbia, and many other tribes, collected the ripe berries for food; the root was often used medicinally. The most-cited use was for stomach ailments but it was also used for earache, cough, arthritis, boils, menstrual troubles, venereal disease, and to stupefy fish. It is a very versatile plant.
Filed under Edible, Medicinal, Native, Plant of the day
The brilliant red of canyon larkspur seems to glow in the shade of a rocky hillside. Also known as red larkspur, the color of Delphinium nudicaule flowers is so intense that it nearly vibrates. Each little flower tapers to a point in the back; an artists’ rendering of a gnome’s cap or the cowl of Little Red Riding Hood’s cape.
Red larkspur tends to grow most prolifically on shaded, rocky slopes. It is found across much of Northern California, and is not to be confused with scarlet larkspur–which grows farther south and has plants with more densely clustered flowers. It’s the only red larkspur in the area (though there is one yellow-flowered species, and several that are blue, white, or purple). According to the Marin Flora, this species has been found to hybridise with the blue-flowered coastal larkspur, creating offspring that are coral, lavender or purple.
All parts of the plant are highly poisonous–don’t eat it!
A puddle of rich gold fills a dip in a meadow; a blanket of gold covers a hillside. Hundreds upon hundreds of little yellow daisies crowd out all other color. This is California goldfields (Lasthenia californica), an aptly named and spectacular spring bloom.
According the Jepson database, the plants can grow over a foot tall, but usually they are much smaller–generally just a few inches high. They look like minute sunflowers, with spreading rays around a mounded central disc of tiny flowers. Indigenous tribes would make a flour of the diminutive seeds, or eat them dried.
There are several other species of goldfields–which tend to look quite similar, and frankly are tough for beginners to key out. In Marin, one tip for a quick & easy way to narrow down what species you might be looking at is to check and see if CNPS has a plant list for the area (Rock Springs, in this case).
Filed under Native, Plant of the day
A sea of pale, snapdragon-like flowers seems to float above the ground, hovering on thin wiry stems. The white, yellow, or lavendar blossoms are so small you can almost miss them–and so dense you have to tread carefully so as not to step on them. Look close: they are lovely. The arched back of the corolla swoops toward an open maw of petals splotched and dotted with color.
This is few-flowered collinsia (Collinsia sparsiflora), a diminutive cousin of the more robust Chinese houses. And yes, they are in the same family as snapdragons. As with other recent species, few-flowered collinsia is tolerant of serpentine.
It is also known as spinster’s blue-eyed Mary.
Filed under Native
This is another lovely flower of the open hillsides. Cream cups (Platystemon californica) have buttery yellow splotches on their tips and toward the middle of each pale yellow petal. Each blossom is perched atop a reddish, wiry stem that is covered with sparse but stout hairs. A mound of hairy, silvery-green leaves provides a base for this pretty showing.
Cream cups were once much more common in open fields, particularly following fire–but today they have been crowded out by more aggressive non-native grasses and weeds. Cream cups tolerate serpentine soils, which is one place you can find them growing in large numbers–because their invasive competitors can’t survive there.
There are some suggestions that the hirsute leaves are edible, but I would do more research before noshing on them. In fact, I might not eat them anyway–they don’t look very appetizing (but then, I don’t like peach fuzz, either).
Cream cups are in the Papaveraceae, the same family as poppies and bleeding hearts.
Filed under Native, Plant of the day
Broad-faced, freckled little flowers are scattered across the grassland. These are baby blue eyes (Nemophila menziesii), a sweet sight of spring. Each showy blossom can be up to 4 cm across, and when they grow en masse they are even more striking. In Marin, these flowers usually are a pale blue, but they can also be white–or a dark blue that fades toward white at the center.
Nemophila menziesii var. menziesii
Baby blue eyes are in the waterleaf family, along with Phacelia and yerba santa, but unlike both those species it has only one showy flower per stalk. They can grow scattered or in dense clusters, with the long-stalked blooms rising above pinnately compound leaves. Look for this bloom from southern Oregon to northern California.
Gardeners love this little annual because it can self-sow, seeding a new batch each year.
Filed under Good for gardens, Native, Plant of the day
A stony hillside is awash in a sea of color. Swatches of yellow, purple, and pink nearly obscure the barren slope, which (other than the flowers) is striking because of how little grows there. This is a serpentine outcrop, and the harsh chemistry of this rock prevents all but a few hardy and specially adapted species from growing.
One lovely serpentine-dominated outcrop is perched atop Mt. Tamalpais near the Rock Springs parking area, and is in full and glorious bloom right now. I’ll write about each of the different species over the next few days–but the above slideshow celebrates the panorama.
Amazingly, there are even more surprises waiting on the stony hillside. Later in the season other flowers, including buckwheat, Mt. Tamalpais jewelflower and yellow mariposa lily, will appear. But for now there is no sign of them.
Filed under TRAIL NOTES
Flowers Of Marin 