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.
Filed under Native, Plant of the day
Mt. Tamalpais jewelflower
On a bare serpentine outcrop high above the Pacific ocean is a low leafless stalk with a few small purple flowers. This is the Mt. Tamalpais jewelflower, a sub-species of Streptanthus glandulosus which is found only in Marin County. Though the plant is unassuming, when you look close the flowers have earned their name. Narrow, crinkled petals flare out above a colorful pouch that is faceted and luminous like a gem.
The jewelflower is in the same family as radish and milkmaid. The long, narrow, fleshy seed pods that are pictured below are typical of the family, though the unusual flowers are not! I saw this beauty, S. glandulosus ssp. pulchellus, near Rock Springs on Mt. Tam during the MMWD/Cal Academy Bioblitz last weekend, and owe thanks for the ID to Terry Gosliner. I wrote about secund jewelflower back in May – which is also a sub-species of S. glandulosus, and the only jewelflower in Marin that isn’t listed as either rare or endangered. 
Filed under Native, Plant of the day, Rare
Like dried flowers in a storebought display, California everlasting has crispy, white, straw-like petals. But actually these petals are bracts – you have to look close, and at the right time, to see the real (yellow) petals peeking through from the flower inside. When done flowering, the bracts open wide around a dandelion-like puff of seeds. 
Pseudognaphalium californicum is a native that’s found in most parts of North America. It’s in the Asteraceae family, along with dandelion, chamomile, burdock and daisy. It dries out as nicely as its name suggests!
There are several similar-looking species to this one, including others in the Pseudognaphalium family. But I first mistook this plant for the very similar lookalike: pearly everlasting (Anaphalis margaritaceae – thanks to Doreen for setting me straight!). I’m still trying to figure out a good way to tell the two apart – in the key, the main difference is that California everlasting has a taproot while the roots of pearly everlasting are fibrous. I think that the flowers of the first are either bisexual (a typical flower, with both male and female parts) or only female, while the latter has separate male and female flowers. But since they are in the aster family, with little teeny tiny flowers, this is a hard difference to spot.
Just from looking at the photos, it seems that California everlasting has a much sleeker, smoother look to the shape of the bracts, while pearly everlasting seems to have a spiky look to each flower head, with the many pointy tips of the bracts bent backwards a little bit.
I’ll offer more tips on how to tell these two apart, as I come up with them!
Filed under Native, Plant of the day
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.
Filed under Native, Plant of the day, Poisonous, Rare
At first glance, the chaparral pea looks like a French broom… with bright pinkish-purple flowers. But this pretty bush is a California native. Pickeringia montana has medium-sized flowers and three-leaftleted leaves that are a shiny, vivid green. It can grow to more than six feet tall, and sprawls a little – just like broom does. But if the color and the shiny leaves weren’t enough to convince you that this isn’t a broom, then the thorns might do the trick! So watch out for it when you’re hiking.
It’s often found (as the name suggest) in the chaparral. Black-tailed deer love to browse on it, delicately nibbling their way around the thorns. This pretty shrub doesn’t reproduce well by seed in this area, but it does spread by rhizomes (spreading underground stems) or from its own roots. It comes back strongly after a fire has burned through.
Filed under Native, Plant of the day
A constellation of yellow lilies blooms on a serpentine ridge atop Mt. Tam. The yellow mariposa lilies (Calochortus luteus) are little works of art: delicate patterns of red and orange decorate the inside of the petals. No two are alike. Some are plain, some are complex. All are lovely. Beetles seem to think so too; I’ve often seen them hanging out inside. When I saw the ones pictured here, some still held water from the previous night’s rain in their cup-shaped blossoms.
This mariposa lily is a California endemic that can be found as far north as Humboldt and as far south as LA.
Filed under Native, Plant of the day
Bedstraw – a.k.a goose grass, cleavers, or stickywilly
If you walk through a patch of bedstraw, you’ll know it right away. The stalks grow long and sprawling, and will wrap around your ankles. But they also are sticky! And the leaves are studded with tiny hook-like bristles! They don’t hurt to brush up against, but they certainly do cling. Its other names include goose grass, cleavers – and stickywilly.
The flowers of Galium aparine are tiny, white, four-petalled stars. But the plant’s most distinctive feature is its leaves: they stick out all around the stem like the spokes on a wagon wheel. Bristly, green, tongue-shaped spokes.
Bedstraw is widespread – not only across California, but throughout the US and southern South America, as well as Europe. A Scottish friend was just telling me that kids will grab handfuls and stick it on one another as a game. It’s listed as a native both in California and in Europe, but is described as an invasive/non-native in other states (like Arizona), so it is clearly aggressive. Bedstraw is used as a medicinal plant, taken as a tincture, juice or tea to treat maladies such as adenoids, nodules, kidney stones, roseola, and cough. It’s also been used on the skin to treat psoriasis, and eczema. 
Filed under Medicinal, Native, Plant of the day
Leggy stalks sprawl at the base of an oak tree, or single plants grow scattered under some rushes. Candy flower, or Claytonia siberica, can have several different growth forms depending on where it is – and how old it is. The five petals are white or pale pink, and striped with a darker pink (I wonder if the name candy flower came from the classic uniform of the “candy stripers”?)
You can tell by looking at the fleshy leaves that this is a close relative of miner’s lettuce, though they don’t have the distinctive circular form. Instead, there is usually just one set of paired leaves, and a long stalk of flowers that rises above that. Candy flower prefers to grow in swamps or on moist slopes. Even if the ground doesn’t look wet, it’s a good indicator that there’s moisture around at least part of the time.
Candy Flower
Filed under Native, Plant of the day
A brown golf ball is dressed in a short yellow skirt. Well not really, but that’s what this funny flower looks like: a big round ball, fringed at its very lower edge with dangling petals. I found this patch of Helenium puberulum perched alongside Highway One just south of Stinson Beach.
There are several different kinds of sneezeweed (a.k.a. Helenium) and they all look like variations on this theme. The “classic” sneezeweed shown here has many flowers per plant, noticeably short petals – they almost look like an afterthought! – and leaves that attach to the stem (the botanical term is decurrent). This combination of traits lets you know you’re looking at plain ‘ol sneezeweed instead of Bigelow’s sneezeweed or yellow sneezeweed. Actually as far as I can tell you don’t even need to look at the leaves or number of flowers – the other sneezeweeds both seem to have larger petals. But it’s always good to ID a plant using more than one feature, since individuals of the same species can show a LOT of variation in its shape, color, size and so on.
The sneezeweeds are in the enormous Asteraceae family, and if you look close you’ll see that the brown ball is made up of hundreds of individual “disc” flowers, and the yellow skirt is the showier “ray” petals.
Filed under Good for gardens, Native, Plant of the day
This is a fearsome plant. It’s rough, tough leaves are larger than my head: pointed and creased like thick green origami. Its stem is hollow and thick as a hose, and it can heft its dense umbel of flowers as much as seven feet in the air. I prefer the scientific name—Heracleum maximum—to the common name “cow parsnip”. That is far too pedestrian for this beast. Cows are placid, parsnips are passive underground things. This is a vigorous creature of light and growth. The implied size is appropriate, but that’s about all.
Right now it is out in abundance and it’s hard to hike (or drive) near the ocean without seeing it. It clusters along stream-banks and hangs over the curves on Highway One. There is nothing else that looks like this plant; it’s the only one of its genus around here. It has a vague similarity to its other cousins in the carrot family like Queen Anne’s lace or poison hemlock—but all the others have divided, lacy leaves whereas our bovine parsnip boasts solid, maple-like leaves as large as dinner platters.
Filed under Native, Plant of the day
Flowers Of Marin 