Catkins

Wildflowers aren't just about pretty petals. Some flowers are tiny and inconspicuous, but have their own aesthetic in the way they're arranged. Catkins are long slender inflorescenses that comprise many tiny unisexual flowers, and are found on shrubs and trees such as willow (Salix sp. - above) and alder (Alnus sp. - below). The word apparently comes from a dutch word meaning kitten - think pussywillow. Like many trees, willow and alder begin to bloom before the trees have even leafed out.

I'm not sure of the species here - once the leaves have fully emerged, hopefully I'll be able to ID them for sure. But chances are the willow is Salix hookeriana (dune or coastal willow). The alder is either Alnus rubra or (red alder) Alnus rhombifolia (white alder). In alders, the female, or seed bearing, catkins look like little cones.

Catkins aren't restricted to one family of plants. Alders are in the birch family (Betulaceae), and the willows in are in their own family (Salicaceae) along with poplar, cottonwood and aspen. Other tree and shrub families, and a few forbs (like stinging nettle) bear catkins.

The alder catkins were photographed amongst redwoods, in the Albion River watershed on March 22, and the willow at Spring Ranch in Mendocino on March 29.

PS: This is why they call red alder red alder...

It's been a very rainy March, and there's been no shortage of slides and trees across the roads.

Footsteps-of-spring

First entry of Spring!

On the bluffs at the end of Jefferson Way in Fort Bragg yesterday, there were a handful of species starting to bloom, but the footsteps of spring (Sanicula arctopoides), were the most prolific.

These plants are aptly named - they're flat and cheery and scattered about the green grassy bluffs like the footprints of a happy little elf. They're are cousins of the cow parsnip from a few weeks ago. They're both in the carrot family (Apiaceae), and characteristically have flowers in an umbel formation. They're so small and compact that they look like little buttons, smaller than a penny. The flower stalks are short and either single or clustered like a tiny cabbage patch.

Like the cow parsnip, these flowers were covered with insects - mostly ants.

Also blooming on the bluffs were Mendocino paintbrush (Castilleja mendocinensis), California buttercup (Ranunculus californicus) and beach strawberry (Fragaria chiloensis).

Happy trails.

Snow Queen

This was a new one for me. Snow queen (Synthyris reniformis var. cordata), a member of the snapdragon family (Scrophulariaceae), is much too small and inconspicuous for such a dramatic name as snow queen. The flowers were about as high as my longest finger, and I was flat on my belly for this shot.

This species can have more reniform (kidney shaped - wider than long) leaves than the one shown here, but leaf shape is variable. Jepson says that plants with leaves longer than they are wide were known as S. reniformis var. cordata, so I take it this may be outdated.

There's also variation in flower color in this species - they're more commonly found with blue to purple flowers.

Photos taken on March 14 in the Noyo watershed east of Fort Bragg, Ca. The flowers were growing on the roadbed of a little-traveled redwood forest road.

[This just in: the snapdragon or figwort family, Scrophulariaceae, according to the wikipedia article has been hacked to pieces and many genera kicked out and sent to other families, including Synthyris, which apparently belongs now to Plantaginaceae (plantain family). This is exactly why I wouldn't necessarily want to be a real botanist.]

Trillium

Trillium flowers, or wake-robins, are well-known harbingers of spring. It's a joy each year to see them start to pop up and bloom.

This is western trillium - Trillium ovatum - one of two common species in this area. The other is Trillium chloropetalum - giant wake robin. You can recognize T. ovatum easily by the section of its stem between the base of the flower and the attachment of the leaves (actually leaf-like bracts?). T. chloropetalum on the other hand is sessile - the flower is directly subtended by the leaves.

The white petals will change to pink over time.

One of the many things I have just learned reading up on Trillium, is that you should not pick them! Picking the flowers inhibits the the underground parts' (the rhizomes') ability to bloom again the next year, since without the leaves they're unable to photosynthesize and stock up for the next season. So, enjoy them in situ, not in vase!

Now here's a fun fact: Trillium seeds are dispersed by ants! It's totally common for animals to spread seeds of plants whose fruit they eat, but I think of birds and rodents and such. This is the first I've heard of ants playing that role - pollination, sure, but seed dispersal? Well silly me; apparently it's really common. The seed is attached to a fleshy structure called an elaiosome which is rich in lipids and proteins, and attracts ants. The ants lug the whole mess to their nests, eat the goodies, discard the seed, and voila!

Trillium are currently in the lily family (Liliaceae). But it's been re-classified a few times. In my beloved copy of Mary Elizabeth Parson's The Wildflowers of California published 1921, they're in the lily family. In the Pocket Flora of the Redwood Forest (Becking, 1982), they're in their own family, Trilliaceae, along with the fetid adder's tongue (Scoliopus bigelovii). Now they're both back in Liliaceae. Are you a lumper or a splitter? I'm neither, I just try to keep up.

I brought out the tripod for this lovely growing in the shade near my house - to get a sharper image. I will do that more often when I get a shorter tripod. Now that I'm shooting flowers, I'll need one. As you'll see, flash photography is not my cup of tea, at least for this project. I want my photos to show the light the flowers see.

These photos taken on March 14 in Little River, Ca

More on Milk Maids

While taking pictures of a Trillium at the edge of the woods at my house,I noticed the multitude of Cardamine californica popping up all over the place. They looked like the normal variety, so I thought I ought to take some pics to demonstrate the difference between these and the ones from my other post. Also, an especially purple Cardamine basal leaf caught my eye and wanted its picture taken (above). The heart shaped basal leaf of the milkmaid plant looks totally different from the cauline leaves, which are usually palmately dissected. They are often various shades of green or purple, or both. Below is the whole plant.

So the question is, dear readers, do the individuals in the photos from my other post belong to a subspecies or variety of Cardamine californica? If I had dear readers, I would ask for their input.

The photos above were taken on March 14 in Little River, Ca.

Coltsfoot

This is arctic sweet coltsfoot, or western coltsfoot - Petasites frigidus var. palmatus a farily widespread species in the sunflower family (Asteraceae). These were growing by the same creek from the last entry, alongside the lone cow parsnip. The two species work well together for this purpose since they're superficially similar, but quite different. Though the coltsfoot flower head is umbel-shaped like the cow parsnip, it's technically a raceme. More-over, its flowers are a world apart, as the plant is in the Asteraceae family. So each "flower" is actually an inflorescence in itself - a composite made of teeny tiny flowers, in this case both "ray flowers" and "disk flowers" just like a sunflower or daisy. And when its seeds become mature, they'll blow away in the wind.

This one hasn't opened yet. I love the purplish color of the involucre (the bracts, or phyllaries, enclosing the inflorescence).

Up close, you can see the disk flowers in the center and ray flowers (they look like petals) on the outside. One of these days I'll get a macro lens...the Canon EOS 50D kit lens (28-135mm IS) isn't too hot in the macro department, unfortunately.

Like the cow parsnip, coltsfoot are insect-pollinated, and their flat-toped flower heads make a nice platform for the insects that come to collect nectar.

A Humble Umbel

Cow Parsnip - Heracleum lanatum - is a member of the carrot family. It has well-known non-native wild cousins: Queen Anne's lace (Daucus), wild fennel (Foeniculum), and poison hemlock (Conium). The family is united by its umbel-type inflorescences, pungent smell, and often irritative qualities. Our cultivated carrots, celery, and parsley have this family's gift of strong smell and flavor without the skin rash-causing qualities.

Cow parsnip are fairly tall but understated plants, normally found in wet areas, whether seeps in an open field, or a roadside ditch, or in a shady riparian area. These photos were of one individual growing on a stream bank by Hwy 1 just south of Westport (Chadbourne Gulch, a.k.a. Blues Beach). Arthropods of all kinds - beetles, flies, spiders, caterpillars - were all over the new blooms and got into most of the shots...

When you get up close, the beauty of the flowers becomes more apparent than from afar.

The inflorescence is an umbel (umbrella-shaped) spread of smaller umbels that radiate from a single point at the top of the stem. The hundreds of tiny flowers form a flat network that makes an intricate floral pattern, and a nice platform for the insects.

Underneath the inflorescence was a nice shady place for a spider web.

Also blooming in said riparian corridor were Coltsfoot (Petasites), which will be featured next...

Today's photos are the rest of the March 1st batch. A little assortment of common woodsy flowers.

Douglas Iris (Iris douglasiana): gorgeous, quite common. Listed as a native noxious weed! You see them in grassy fields as well as in the woods, in openings and on roadsides. They reproduce via rhizomes, so you may find them in dense patches. This was a loner, and it's neighbor appears to have been eaten, presumably by a deer.

And the not-so-violet stream violet (Viola glabella). Violets are edible and a good source of vitamin C.

And finally, a pretty composite, Petasites palmatus - Western Coltsfoot.

I read that you can eat the leaves cooked like spinach - but not too much because they're high in pyrolizidine alkaloids, which are toxic to the liver. The concentration is lowest in the leaves. The Wikipedia article also sites a study that found that extracts of petasin and/or isopetasin, a substance in the roots, relieves migraines. A related plant is the introduced European medicinal plant Tussilago farfara, also known as known as coltsfoot, used as a cough suppressant. T. Farfara looks different and it doesn't grow here.

Shrubbery

Thanks to Monty Python, I can't say the word 'shrubbery' with out a giggle. Today's subjects are all shrubs from yesterday's drive in the woods. Some have been blooming since late January.

The Manzanita above is Arctostaphylos columbiana (Hairy Manzantia). Out of over 100 species of Arctostaphylos, this is the one species that commonly grows in the redwood forests.

And here's spectacular Rubus specabilis, the Salmonberry. The prettiest bramble, if you ask me, from the rockin' pink petals to the lines in the bright green leaves - it makes up for the thorns. The berries can be pretty good too; don't tast a bit like salmon. ;)

But the star is fancy Garrya elliptica, the Coast Silk Tassel, with its wavy leaves and designer catkins, it's a show-stopper. It's not uncommon but definitely scattered and fun to come across. The species is found in California and Oregon, mostly in the coastal counties.

The US Forest Service plant database entry has all kinds of fun stats, including this gem:

"The relish and degree of use shown by livestock and wildlife species for Fremont silktassel leaves

and twigs in California is rated as follows [22]:                           

mule deer - good                          

cattle - poor                          

horses - poor                          

goats - good                          

sheep - fair to good"

How 'bout that?

That entry was actually for its cousin, G. fremontii, but both species produce an alkaloid called Garryine that makes the plant somewhat unpalatable to some browsers. The compound lends medicinal values, too. Apparently the early settlers used it as a tonic.

The shrubs are dioecious - seed bearing and pollen bearing flowers are on separate plants. These photos don't have good detail, but you can kind of see the anthers dangling from the fused bracts.

According to the Ca. Natural History Guides' Trees and Shrubs book (2001), the tallest G. elliptica grows in Brookings, Oregon and is 8.8 m (29 ft) tall, and 23 cm (9 in) in diameter. Not bad for a shrub.

That does it for today. The rest of yesterday's flower models will be featured tomorrow...

First of the Forest Flowers

Milk maids (Cardamine californica) are a kind of bittercress, or toothwort - they're in the mustard family. They spring early, and are common in shady woods. Some Cardamine species are garden pests and are hard to control because their prolific dehiscent fruits spew seeds efficiently. Milk maids quickly become so ubiquitous in the early spring you stop noticing them. But notice them, because they're interesting: the variation in flower color and leaf shape is wide - at least in this area where I was photographing. These photos were taken today by a forest road in the Juan Creek watershed north of Fort Bragg. They're all within a 10 meter radius of one another yet all so different. (Perhaps different variations, but I think they're all C. Californica.)

And now for a photography note - a demo of the beauty of depth of field in creating different effects with the same subject. The one of the left is shot at f/5.6 and the other is at f/11 (both at 135 mm). They're hand held and the light was low, so the second shot had to be taken at a higher ISO (from 125 up to 800). Anyway, my point is just that both are lovely images but the depth of field gives each shot its own personality. The shallower DOF photo on the left is pretty, and kind of dramatic, but the one on the right has more detail throughout, calling attention to the whole plant, not just the flowers. I couldn't decide which effect was important now, hence the side by side.

There were other early blooms today: salmonberry, violet, coltsfoot, manzanita, iris. But I'll save those for later....