Category Archives: Plant of the day

July 16, 2012 · 9:44 pm

Plant of the day: Himalayan blackberry

In ditches and along river banks, the berries are beginning to ripen. Great green mounds of shrubs – all leaves and thorny branches – are speckled with dark purple fruit. Younger berries are still green or red, and most bushes still have flowers on them as well.

This is the Himalayan blackberry (Rubus armeniacus), one of the most common berries around. It is also one of the only non-native invasive berries in the area. Though it’s delicious in pies, smoothies and endless other treats, this shrub can be a nasty problem for native habitats: I’ve seen it smother entire fields, leaving no space for native plants and the animals that depend on them. Usually you’ll see it in disturbed places and on poor soils. Despite the name, the bush originally came from western Europe and there is “no evidence” that it came from the Himalayas.

One nifty thing about this “fruit” is that it’s actually a bunch of small fruits – each little nub on the berry is called a “drupelet” in botany-speak.

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July 15, 2012 · 9:02 am

Plant of the day: slender tarweed

Here is a common little tarweed with small unobtrusive flowers. Madia gracilis has the strong odor and sticky stem that’s common to the tarweeds (or gumweeds, which is another one of this little guy’s common names). The flowers are often dwarfed by the bulbous green cup of sepals below. If you look close you’ll see that the entire plant is covered with little glandular hairs, with tiny black dots atop stubby white bristles.

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July 14, 2012 · 11:49 am

Plant of the day: coast hedge nettle

A spike of striking purple flowers rises from the tangle of greenery in a low wetland. Here is the coast hedge nettle, or Stachys chamissonis. This is a lovely summer bloomer that grows several feet tall and boast big showy flowers. The Flora of Marin went so far as to call this “one of our most attractive flowering plants.” High praise given the stiff competition.

Check the square stem and pairs of simple leaves for a good guess as to what family it is in!

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July 13, 2012 · 9:11 am

Plant of the day: salsify

With a spiky green sheath of bracts surrounding several layers of purple petal-like flowers, salsify (Trapopogon porrifolius) is a beautiful and slightly cruel looking plant. The inner flowers of the head are dusted with yellow pollen that is the perfect ornament on the dark purple petals. Each of the large-ish, showy flowers is actually many flowers, since this is a member of the Asteraceae family. Once the flower has gone to seed, it produces a big dandelion poof that can be a few inches across.

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This plant is also called oyster-root, and it was introduced from Europe where the carrot-like root is eaten; the flavor is described as similar to oyster or artichoke. Here in California it is an escaped ornamental, and likes to grow in dry grassy areas. You usually will see it in disturbed places, not too far from town.

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July 12, 2012 · 9:28 am

Plant of the day: Spanish broom

With flamboyant, showy flowers, Spanish broom is probably the most beautiful of all the evil brooms. It is still evil, though. Don’t be fooled by the big yellow flowers with their many exuberant stamens and pretty wing-like petals.

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This plant has the lean, linear look of Scotch broom but with even fewer leaves. The California Invasive Plant Council lists Spanish broom (Spartium junceum) as a species that can cause serious problems for native ecosystems. It can grow up to 15 feet tall and form dense stands that smother all other plants in the area. According the IPC, it is native to Spain, Morocco and other parts of southern Europe. It was introduced to California in 1848 as a decorative plant, and in the 1930s was planted along mountain highways in Southern California. Oops.

In Marin, it is one of the least common brooms. I saw the ones pictured here clinging to the slopes of what looks like an old rock quarry owned by the Marin Municipal Water District.

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July 11, 2012 · 3:57 pm

Plant of the day: pride of Madeira

You’ll see these towering purple spikes looming from road cuts and clifftops. This is pride of Madeira, or Echium candicans. It’s a common sight – especially in more coastal areas. It grows to more than seven feet tall, and is very striking with its gray-green leaves and massive heads of flowers (easily over a foot long).

Sadly, this plant isn’t native to the US. It’s another escaped ornamental species that’s still commonly used in landscaping. Birds and butterflies love it, and deer don’t. In inland areas this isn’t a problem but in the coastal climate it spreads on its own, gradually creeping into wild areas. Because it spreads slowly it is only considered to be moderately invasive, but it’s still not recommended for local gardens.

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July 10, 2012 · 9:46 pm

Plant of the day: coyote mint

A purple crown of flowers above dusty gray-green leaves: here is a coyote mint in bloom. In the center of the exuberant lilac ring of flowers, a round green bulge of unopened buds looks like a clown’s pate peeking through. Each flower is tube-shaped, its sprawling petals accented by many long stamens. The entire flower head approaches two inches across, and the plant grows one to two feet high, slightly sprawling.

One very charming thing about this coyote mint (Monardella villosa) is that it sports a twin pair of tiny leaves at the base of each pair of larger leaves.

This flower grows only in Oregon and California, and is a great addition to a well-drained garden since it attracts bees and butterflies. You can tell it’s in the mint family by taking a look at the square, four-sided stem. Every time I’ve seen it I’ve forgotten to take a sniff, but I hear that it has a characteristic toothpaste-like aroma as well… It was used by the Spanish as a cure for sore throats.

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July 9, 2012 · 10:24 pm

Plant of the day: oxeye daisy

Hiking across a remote meadow, I suddenly find myself in a knee-high field of daisies. This is the invasive oxeye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare), a striking flower with stark white petals around a yellow center.

This bloom was introduced from Europe and is now widespread throughout Marin and much of California. It has a cousin, Shasta daisy, which is less common and has (very slightly) larger flowers and leaves. Oxeye daisy is a moderately problematic invasive, growing so densely in places that it excludes other native vegetation. It also is known for giving cows’ milk an unpleasant taste if they eat it.

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July 8, 2012 · 7:58 pm

Plant of the day: thimbleberry

Berry season is upon us! Thimbleberries are a great trailside treat – the red berries are so delicate that picking a large quantity can be hard. But that delicacy is also what makes them so fun to eat. To me they taste like a little dollop of jam, served up right there on the bush. The fruit just dissolves in your mouth like it was already cooked.

Thimbleberries are distinguished by their large, soft, maple-shaped leaves. In the spring they sport large white flowers: many stamens gather around a yellow center. By early summer their bright red raspberry-like fruits have begun to ripen. You can find them in most parts of California, from the Sierras to the sea, and also across much of North America.

Thimbleberries (Rubus parviflorus) are in the Rosaceae family, and are closely related to blackberries, raspberries and salmonberries – all of which are in the Rubus genus as well. What a tasty clan!

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July 7, 2012 · 11:18 am

Plant of the day: harvest brodiaea

Here is one of the leggy purple flowers of the grasslands. The funnel-shaped blossom sprawls open as it ages, revealing three pale spatula-like staminoides.  The narrow stalk is leafless, and branches into a loose umbel of a few flowers.

Harvest brodiaea (Brodiaea elegans) is one of only two brodiaeas in Marin, but there are several others in the greater bay area – e.g. California brodiaea, Hoover’s brodiaea, and crown brodiaea. Dwarf brodiaea is the other kind that grows in Marin.

In the dormant season, this perennial flower dies back to an underground corm, which is the bulb-like structure pictured above (I say bulb-like because a bulb is actually made of modified leaves, like an onion, whereas a corm is solid all the way through. And as long as I’m getting technical, I may as well point out that a corm is not a root. It’s a modified bit of the plant’s stem that serves to store food and help it survive the winter. The actual roots branch off from the bottom of the corm.)

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