Tag Archives: Botany

May 14, 2012 · 5:24 pm

Plant of the day: harlequin lotus

Low, gaudy patches of yellow and purple are splashed across the grass of a wet meadow. This is Lotus formosissiumus, which has numerous common names including harlequin lotus, bicolored lotus, coast lotus or (if you’re in the mood for a bit of a tongue-twister) seaside bird’s foot trefoil. I find harlequin lotus the most descriptive, though coast lotus is also a good monniker since it’s range doesn’t go very far inland.

With it’s typical two-lipped flowers it’s clearly in the pea family. But what coloring! The upper lips are a rich, bright yellow, and the lower lips are a flashy pinkish purple that can, in some plants, fade out towards white with age. The Peterson guide says it grows 1 to 2 feet tall, but I have never seen one more than 5 or so inches high, and other books don’t mention height as a diagnostic trait.

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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 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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May 2, 2012 · 10:32 pm

Plant of the day: pussy ears

Here’s another Calochortus to go with yesterday’s star tulip. You can see there is a very strong family resemblance! You also can see where this flower got its name, with such heavily furred ear-shaped petals.

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Pussy ears (Calochortus tolmiei) is the only pale-colored Calochortus (cream or pinkish) in Marin that is NOT listed as a rare species. It is a beloved woodland sight, growing under mixed the spreading boughs of oaks or in redwood forest or even among the small scrubby trunks of chaparral. Even though it is more common, it’s always a treat because of its delicate and distinctive look. You can tell it’s in the lily family, since its petals are in groups of three. Plus, the three broad petals alternate with very long and very narrow sepals, which is the signature look of  most Calochortus.

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May 1, 2012 · 9:18 am

Plant of the day: Oakland star tulip

The mariposa lilies are a treat, every one. I was happy to come across an Oakland star tulip, also known as Oakland mariposa lily (Calochortus umbellatus) on Pine Mountain the other day. It can be distinguished from its more common cousin, pussy ears (calochortus tomeii) because it’s petals are only hairy on the lower half, not all the way up. The rocky gaps between clumps of chaparral along the Pine Mountain fire road are an ideal place to find this low-growing lily, which likes nutrient-poor serpentine soils and rocky slopes. It’s worth noting that it can also be found growing under the trees or shrub canopy on moist hillsides, though. Oakland mariposa lily is listed as a rare plant in California because of its limited distribution – it’s mostly found in the Bay Area.

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April 30, 2012 · 3:27 pm

Plant of the day: bracken fern

Bracken fern is another one of my longtime favorite plants – and not just because the young, furled tips are tasty in salads or while on the trail. This unpretentious plant is both attractive and hardy. You see it in woodsy understories,  on dry hot hillsides, and everywhere in between. In the autumn, it’s dry leaves add a particular, pleasant scent to the fragrance of the forest. Wildlife uses it for food and nesting material; sometimes I’ve found beaten-down areas in larger patches, where deer have bedded down to sleep.

Distinct from other ferns, its large (up to 2 feet) fronds are broadly triangular, and often have an airy quality to them, with a lot of space between each sub-frond. Underneath, the fertile spores are found in a line hugging the edge of every leaflet. Even when these sori aren’t brown and ripe, you can see them as a raised green rim – another good diagnostic clue. None of the many other ferns in the area has this combination of obtuse outline, frond type, large size, and brown spore rim. Pteridium aquilinum can be found growing throughout most of North America. In fact (according to the USDA plants database) the only state in the US that it isn’t found in is South Dakota, which is odd enough that one has to wonder if it’s a data glitch. Or… maybe there is a legit ecological reason that this is the only state our fern has shunned!

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April 29, 2012 · 12:27 pm

Plant of the day: western star flower

These “woodland stars” twinkle along forested trailsides in the springtime. They are like a high-end graphic designer’s version of a flower, with their many delicately pointed pale pink petals and curving yellow-tipped stamen. The blossom is usually displayed singly, rising from the center of a ring of spring-green leaves. Trientalis latifolia is the only one of its kind found in Marin, and usually grows under redwoods or other evergreens. Though it often can be found in wetlands and moist hillsides it can also thrive in drier spots.

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April 27, 2012 · 12:55 pm

Pine Mountain, serpentine wonderland

The views are amazing on this high rocky ridge, and so are the plants. Dense stands of chaparral suddenly open onto stony serpentine outcrops supporting those hardy plants that can survive on such nutrient-poor soils. Right now ceanothus and manzanita are in bloom, and there are scattered meadows filled with wildflowers – goldfields, poppies, lupine, falselupine, and many more.

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Get to Pine Mountain by driving up Bolinas-Fairfax road. The ridge runs northwest from a big turnout – you can walk all the way in to the San Geronimo Valley from here, on a wonderful network of trails and through a lovely rare forest of dwarfed Sargent cypress. There are no roads or houses in this area, and so as you walk often all you see is a tangle of forested ridges and valleys. And when you turn around and head home, you get sweeping views of the bay, the Richmond bridge, and Mt. Tam!

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