Category Archives: Plant of the day

May 26, 2012 · 8:32 am

Plant of the day: rough hedge nettle

Rough hedge nettle is widespread in the area, and hedge nettles in general are easy to recognize. Though they don’t have the typical smell, hedge nettles are in the mint family! Mints are often hairy and smelly (like some rugged botanist-types that I know?!) and they have a tubular flower that usually is distinctly two-lipped. For the hedge nettles this is certainly the case. But the real giveaway for this family is that they have a square stem. Just roll it between your fingers to see what this means – all mint stems are distinctly four-sided (see the stem close-up below). There are other families that have square stems, but the many local species in the mint family (Lamiaceae) are by far the most common.

Stachys rigida is usually found in dry places—woods, shrublands, or grasslands. There are other hedge nettles (such as S. chamissonis, with its showy purple flowers) that prefer wetlands but our S. rigida is almost always on slopes, in gravel, clay or rocky soil. And, if you want to get technical, you should know that the Marin Flora lists Stachys rigida var. quercitorum as the local variety.

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May 25, 2012 · 8:28 am

Plant of the day: silverweed cinquefoil

Silver weed cinquefoil

Potentilla anserina

This is sunny little flower almost always grows in wetlands or creeksides, though it can be found elsewhere. The photo shown here was taken on a seemingly-dry trailside, but because it was on a hill I wouldn’t be surprised if it is wetter than it appeared. Potentilla anserina is the most common cinquefoil in the area. In general, cinquefoils have a very distinctive “look,” with five spreading petals and surrounding a central mound of many stamens. The leaves are composed of crinkly, jagged-edged leaflets. Often the leaflets are arranged in many pairs along the stem (as with this silverweed here), but sometimes they are in threes or in a fan shape. Once you’ve seen a few different species the similarities start to jump out at you!

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May 24, 2012 · 8:26 am

Plant of the day: long beaked stork’s bill

Long beaked stork’s bill is a ubiquitous sight in the fields of the bay area. This invasive little weed and its cousins, other types of stork’s bills, have naturalized across most of California. The long beaked stork’s bill (Erodium botrys) is distinctive because of the particularly long, beak-like seed pod, but also because of its leaf – it is the only one with a long narrow leaf that isn’t actually dissected into separate leaflets.

There are several species of wild geraniums with flowers that look quite a bit like those of stork’s bills – small, pinkish-purple. Again, look to the leaf to know what plant it is. The geraniums (sometimes called crane’s bills) have deeply dissected leaves that are overall roundish in shape. In other words, if you drew a line around the outside of the leaf, ignoring the details, you’d come up with a circle as opposed to the overall tongue-shaped leaves of the stork’s bills. The wild geranium petals are usually notched at the end, giving them a toothed look. Almost all of the wild geraniums are also invasive, with a few exceptions.

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May 24, 2012 · 8:23 am

Plant of the day: foxglove

Tall spikes of white or purple flowers are bursting like flares across Marin. This is the season for foxglove, another striking-looking invasive. Native to all parts of Europe, it has now colonized much of North America, where it appears to prefer the coastal areas to the heartland. You can find it in from Alaska to Mexico, and on much of the east coast as well. Digitalis purpurea can grow to be taller than a full-grown person and is quick to colonize areas that have been disturbed such as road sides, logging or building sites.

Foxglove is also highly toxic so don’t eat it!! Small amounts have been known to be fatal. Some of its other names give you a clue that this is a bad idea: Witches’ Gloves, Dead Men’s Bells, Bloody Fingers, and Fairy’s Glove just name a few. Yet in its noteworthy history, Digitalis was also used as a medicinal plant by herbalists. They were on to something: extracts from the plant are now used pharmaceutically to treat congestive heart failure. As much as I appreciate folk remedies, this is one I’m glad the scientific establishment has gotten involved with; messing around with a plant that supposedly killed some kids who drank the water from a vase containing foxgloves seems like a bad idea!

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May 23, 2012 · 10:23 am

Plant of the day: secund jewelflower

Like a handful of precious jewels scattered on a rocky slope, this flower is easily missed but well worth a closer look. With single flowers spread out on a long, leafless stalk they can blend into the background. Each blossom is gathered at the base into a balloon that reminds me of the bell-shaped skirts at an old-fashioned ball. At the mouth, the four petals crinkle and flare outwards from a purple-tinged mouth. This is Streptanthus glandulosus ssp. Secundus. The ssp means “subspecies” – a lot of times this designation refers to very subtle differences within a species that a casual botanist isn’t interested in. But in this case, it means this flower is white while the others are dark purple. There are several different jewelflowers in the area, distinguished by their distinctive pouchlike shape, but this is the only white one listed in the Marin Flora.

Jewelflowers are in the same family (Brassicaceae) as the common wild mustards and radish weeds that grow all over, but their signature blossoms are different from most members of this group, which have simple four-petalled flowers. Milkmaids are a good example of a classic brassica.

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May 22, 2012 · 8:56 am

Plant of the day: mule ears

Like stubby sunflowers, these cheerful yellow blossoms have large, open faces. They can be seen ornamenting grassy hillsides as well as woods and brushy areas. Mule ears (Wyethia glabra) is a California endemic that is widespread throughout much of the western part of the state. Each yellow flower head is backed by a large collection of leaves that can be seen peeking out from behind the inflorescence. Narrow-leaved mule ears (Wyethia angustifolia, not endemic) are also common in Marin, but are easy to tell from regular mule ears because they lack these backing “broad and foliacious” bracts.

This is the first member of the Ateraceae family – also known as a “composite” – to appear on this blog, so a note on this type of plant. What looks like a single flower is actually hundreds of smaller flowers grouped together. This amalgamation is easier to mistake for a single bloom than other headlike arrangements because often the outer flowers look like petals, while the inner flowers are smaller and less showy and can look a lot like pistils or stamens. The outer, petal-like flowers are the “ray” flowers and the inner ones are the “disc” flowers. Each is truly an independent flower in and  of itself, each with its own petals and reproductive parts. The entire arrangement is called a “pseudanthia.”

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May 21, 2012 · 8:57 am

Plant of the day: milk maids

Milk maids are a ubiquitous sight in the spring, with their flowers of four simple white petals alternating sparsely up a stalk. They are one of the first of the year to start blooming, and they can last through May. Wikipedia says the name derives from a hat often worn by milkmaids, but that seems like a stretch since there is nothing bonnet-like about these blooms. Cardamine californica has flowers that are about half an inch across, and grow in most habitat types in the county except the driest. The four petals mark it as a brassica, the same family that houses wild mustard and radish. Many cultivated edibles, like broccoli and kale, are also in the Brassicaceae. Because of the “cross shaped” petals, this family once was called the cruciferae.

This pretty little flower is one of the earliest to bloom, and all parts of the plant (leaves, flowers, and roots) are edible, with a peppery radishlike flavor–they are tastiest before the flowers bloom, according to Judith Larner Lowry’s wonderful book, California Foraging (I admit I haven’t done a careful comparison myself).

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May 20, 2012 · 9:17 am

Plant of the day: Douglas iris

The wild irises of California are a spring delight. You can see them in forest clearings and meadows, sometimes in great green and purple masses. Other times one plant will appear singly, a burst of color against the browns of an understory. With their many variations in color and decoration they are a never-ending visual treat ranging from dark purple to pale yellow.

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The three largest, lower petals can look like a cross between a watercolor and a stained-glass window, with dark veins blocking out yellows, whites and purples – but with the color fading gently towards the edge of the petal. Above it is what appears to be a paler, less gaudy petal (it’s actually part of the pistil). Sandwiched between the two is the dark purple tongue of the stamen, dusted underneath with pollen, and invisible unless you pry the flower open or look very close. Often you’ll see bees rummaging around and coming out with their legs laden with pollen.

Douglas iris (Iris douglasiana) is the most common wild iris species, but coast iris (Iris longipetala) and ground iris (Iris macrosiphon) are also somewhat common. And keying them is a trick!! Every book or expert gives different suggestions about how to distinguish one from another. The Marin Flora says you can identify a Douglas iris if the pollen is yellow and the surface of the leaf is shinier than the underside and the long purple tube below the flower (the perianth tube) is about 2 centimeters long. But the Flora of Sonoma County suggests two ways to ID the Douglas. First  is if the leaf bases (but not the entire plant!) is reddish. Second is if the perianth tube is less than 3 centimeters long. So take your pick! Once I get a confident ID on another species I’ll post about those as well.

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May 19, 2012 · 8:38 am

Plant of the day: yerba santa

Beside a rocky trail, a tall spike of leathery green leaves topped by a cluster of white flowers peeks up through the chaparral. This is yerba santa, or Eriodictyon californicum. It is known as a medicinal plant (tea now available at Amazon as well as in the great outdoors), though personally I haven’t been attracted by the descriptions of a bitter, menthol-like taste. Traditionally, the tea was used for colds and other respiratory troubles, though it also has been used to treat maladies as diverse as stomach aches, headaches, bruises, eye troubles, and gonnorhea.

The leaves are often dusted with an unappealing black mold, but without this yerba santa is a handsome plant. The white flowers cluster loosely at the top of the spike of leaves. Each blossom is tubular and flared at the mouth, with petals that taper off into points. If you look close, you’ll see that each flower has two styles (and no, that isn’t sweats and slacks. The style is the shaft of the female reproductive parts).

You commonly find yerba santa on rocky slopes or in chaparral, among the dense scrub of manzanita or ceanothus. It can reproduce by seed, but only does so after a fire or other disturbance of the soil surface. Since fires aren’t common in today’s era of fire suppression, it usually reproduced vegetatively. They can grow a rhizome (rootlike structure) up to eight feet long in a single summer! That rhizome will put up new plants every 8 to 10 inches — an effective way to raise a family indeed.

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May 18, 2012 · 11:45 am

Plant of the day: French broom

I remember when I was a kid, and first learned that the pretty yellow-flowered bushes I saw all over were bad for the environment. It was probably my first ecological lesson, and I was heartbroken. Their sunny color had always made me happy when I looked out the window on family drives. How could I have been so wrong?

Since then, Genista monspessulana has only become more common. You can see it filling the understory of forests on Mt. Tam, or spilling over the cement retaining walls along roadsides. This highly invasive plant is native to the Mediterranean and the Azores, and was brought to California in the 1800s — probably as an ornamental for gardens. It really is quite pretty. But it also is what scientists call an “ecosystem disruptor” because it wreaks havoc on the native plant communities. It forms dense stands up to 16 feet tall, under which nothing else can survive. All the delicate flowers, grasses and even hardier shrubs perish in its shadow. Livestock don’t even like to eat it. Broom is like an ecological bulldozer, taking diverse habitats and leaving a barren landscape in which it is the only survivor. A single plant has been found to produce over 30,000 seeds — and the seeds live for decades in the soil, waiting for a disturbance like digging (or pulling a grown plant out by the roots) before they sprout. It also is a fire danger, growing tall and tinder dry. Can you tell how I feel about this plant? It’s a nightmare. If you have it on your land or in your neighborhood, get rid of it!! Quick, before it spreads!

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