Tag Archives: Botany

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 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 6, 2012 · 5:06 pm

Plant of the day: trail plant

Adenocaulon bicolor

With distinctive arrow-shaped leaves, trail plant is a common sight while hiking. The tiny white flower is much easier to miss – I mostly notice the leaves without blooms. When it does flower, this perennial herb shoots up a long, mostly bare stalk from the low cluster of leaves.

The small flowers initially appear in a series of tiny heads, each on their own branch off the central stalk. But as the plant ages and the seed pods elongate, one flower will stay perched on the end of each seed/ovary as it matures. This gives the head an interesting multi-storied look, with some flowers still clustered in the center and some perched above them atop their green pedestals.

Adenocaulon bicolor seeds get sticky and cling to socks, pants, and fur – a handy way to disperse but a pain in the neck to walk through. Still, I’ve always been fond of this unassuming plant. The leaves are a cheerful green (with a cottony white coating underneath) and the flowers are quirky. Good enough for me!

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July 5, 2012 · 4:41 pm

Plant of the day: yarrow

Achillea millefolium

Knee-high clumps of creamy flowers stand atop a narrow stalk. Each yarrow flower has a sweetly classic daisy shape to it – and like a daisy, it is actually many flowers. If you look close you’ll see the demure inner “disc” petals surrounded by the flashy outer “ray” petals.

In the southwest, yarrow is sometimes called Plumajillo, or little feather, because of its delicate plume-shaped leaves. It is listed as being mildly toxic by the California Poison Control system, but historically has been used as a tea to treat colds, nausea, cramps, hives, measles and kidney ailments. Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) also was used externally to treat cuts, stop nosebleeds, and as a hair wash to prevent baldness!

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July 4, 2012 · 9:44 am

Plant of the day: huckleberry

Vaccinium ovatum

One of my favorite Fourth of July memories is eating my great-aunt Martha’s huckleberry pie when I was a kid. We’d gather at the family campground by a little river, and eat California delicacies like abalone, venison, and this wonderful pie. Huckleberries are a wild-tasting fruit, tart but sweet. They taste of pine forest and long days with picking buckets. The little fruits hold their texture even when cooked, they  pop in your mouth with a satisfying burst: perfect when blended with sugar and a flaky crust.

Huckleberries (Vaccinium ovatum) grow all along the west coast – from Canada to Alaska – but not many people cook with them often since they are so small that picking enough for a pie takes a long time. Look for them  in forests and clearings, often on slopes. The shrubs are attractive, with dense shiny foliage of small oval leaves. White lantern-shaped flowers give rise to small, round, dark purple fruit that looks like a small blueberry.

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July 1, 2012 · 2:03 pm

Plant of the day: rattlesnake grass

The brown hills of California are far from monochromatic. Look closely and you’ll see a complex tapestry of colors, textures, shapes, sizes–and sounds! Do you hear that rustling rattle as you brush through the grass? Look close and you’ll see graceful stalks of rattle-shaped grass heads.

This is rattlesnake grass, or Briza maxima—one of my favorite plants of the summer. Sadly this nice-looking plant is also fairly invasive (introduced from Europe, and occasionally planted as an ornamental). It’s now become naturalized in the Coast Range and in scattered other parts of California, which is why you see it almost everywhere.

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June 30, 2012 · 6:42 pm

Plant of the day: rosin weed

Growing across a rocky bed of serpentine is a field of low white flowers. Look close, and you see that the leaves and stems are sticky and thick with white hairs. Nestled among the hairs are little dark dots that are actually glands. This is what makes it sticky – and also the source of the name, Calycadenia multiglandulosa.

You’ll usually see this little plant on serpentine, and only in California.

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June 27, 2012 · 9:40 pm

Plant of the day: sweet pea

These flashy pink flowers are everywhere right now. Like the Tangier pea that I wrote about a few weeks ago, the sweet pea (Lathyrus latifolius) is an escaped garden plant. It has many sweet-smelling pink or purple flowers growing at the end of climbing stalks. The stem is dramatically flared, or winged, with a flat leaflike shelf projecting out from either side. The leaves are narrow and paired, like bunny ears.

As I mentioned in the last pea post, there are several different kinds of sweet peas growing in the area – I had always thought there was only one! Today’s post is about the true “sweet pea”, which is distinguished by the broad stem wings and by the fact that it’s a perennial, not an annual. You can tell the non-native sweet peas from the native species by looking at the leaves. All the non-natives have the paired “bunny ear” type of leaf, while the native species have many (more than five) leaflets on a stalk.

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June 26, 2012 · 9:18 am

Plant of the day: marsh zigadene (death camas)

Growing alongside a meadow stream are many spikes of pale flowers. This is marsh zigadene, or Toxicoscordion micranthus. A few long, linear leaves sit unobtrusively at the base of the plant, which is decked with several dozen creamy white blossoms. The six-petalled flowers have a small yellow spot at the base of each grooved petal, and a short tight cluster of stamens with oversized anthers.

Marsh zigadene is a native that is usually found growing in damp places, often near serpentine, according to the Flora of Marin. It’s common in this county but is rare elsewhere.

The common name for the several similar-looking species in the Toxicoscordion genus is “death camas.” These species are another example of highly toxic beauty. I have always known these plants as Zigadenus species, but they were recently moved to a different group (something that is always happening in the botany world – it can be hard to keep track!). They are still listed in most floras under the old name, but are in online databases under the new name.

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