Monkeyflowers

Monkey flower (Mimulus) is a pretty diverse genus formerly in the recently re-thunk snapdragon family (Scrophulariaceae), now in the lopseed family (Phrymaceae).  The genus is at home in western North America and Australia.  The two species pictured here are sticky monkey flower (M. aurantiacus - above) and seep monkey flower (M. guttatus - below). Note M. auriantiacus, seems to be moving to another genus: Diplacus.

Sticky monkey flower is a shrub that grows in dry slopes throughout California. The sticky is on the underside of the leaf.  It's a resin produced by the plant to discourage caterpillars from devouring the leaves.  Seep monkey flower is an herbaceous annual that grows in low lying ever-moist areas like springs and drainage ditches.

M. aurantiacus photos at top taken on May 20 at Alder Creek near Manchester.  M. guttatus photos above taken near Noyo Harbor in Fort Bragg, and M. guttatus photos below taken by the side of Orr Springs Road east of Comptche on May 1.

Poppies, part 2

Poppies close up for the night - presumably to protect the pollen.  The phenomenon of plant movement in response to day/night is called nyctinasty.  Poppies accomplish this with a change in turgor pressure caused by movement of fluid in and out of special cells at the base of the petals.

This photo made me fall in love with California poppies all over again (double click the photo for a better view).  Out for a drive on a Sunday morning to take some landscape pictures, I was disappointed that the poppies along the way were still all closed up from the night.  But when I saw this lone flower by the road as I stepped out to take a photo of a field of buttercups, I realized that the closed-up poppies had an elegance all their own.  The petals gracefully enclosed each other in a neat little hug and the morning light showed off the color and curve of the petals sublimely.

Canyon Larkspur

Larkspur (Delphinium) are in the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae), and are easily recognizable by their pointy spurs, formed by fused petal-like sepals.   Like all Ranunculaceae, the leaves are palmately lobed and toothed.

As the name implies, the canyon larkspur grows on steep slopes.  This season I've seen it on highway cutbanks (as in these photos taken near Orr Springs on Orr Springs road), and on steep coastal bluffs.

On my Flickr page, I titled this photo "goldfish in a green sea."  The canyon larkspur, with their characteristic spurs set horizontally on their stems, and growing in patches of hundreds of red flowers, looked just like a school of fish swimming amongst the green grass on the steep grassy slope they grew on.  Or, as Mary Elizabeth Parsons says in her 1921 field guide, "it would require no great stretch of the imagination to fancy these blossoms a company of pert little red-coated elves clambering over the loose, slender stems."  (I think Ms. Parsons was the original bloom-blogger!)

The photos are from May 1, taken near Orr Springs.

Spotted Coralroot

One of my favorite parts of the flora of shady forests are the achlorophyllous plants, such as coralroot (Corallorhyza sp.) and other plants that lack chlorophyll. Since they can't photosynthesize, they borrow nutrients from other organisms.  Coralroot gets nutrients from the soil by parasitizing the fungi in the forest floor.

Coralroot, like skunks, come in two species: spotted and striped (C. maculata and C. striata).   The flowers are borne in a raceme, with several flowers per stem.  Before they open, they look like purple asparagus, about a foot tall, sticking out of the duff.

Coralroot aren't an everyday sight in the woods, but often when you do see them, they'll grow in a dense little patch, each single stem sprouting from an underground coral-like rhizome.  The lack of green leaves cause the flowers to blend in to the leaf litter, but once you spot them, their peachy color and the interesting red and white patterns of the flowers distinguish them.

Coralroot are found in shady conifer forests of North America.  You can easily tell them from C. striata by the spots on the labellum.  In C. striata, all the petals have red and white stripes parallel to the long edge of the petal.  There is one more species, C. mertensiana, which has a striped labellum, too, but the pattern is less vibrant and distinct.

These photos of C. maculata were taken May 4, in the Middle Fork Albion River area, South of Mendocino, Ca.

Dogwood

Dogwood (Cornus sp) is often associated with the south. In fact, flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) is the state flower of both North Carolina and Virginia. But we have several species here in the western states, including this one that resembles the magnolia-esque southern belles - Pacific dogwood (Cornus nuttallii).  Incidentally, it's the provincial flower of British Columbia.   

The flowers are actually the compact inconspicuous cluster in the middle (in the picture above only one has opened), while 4 to 8 large, cream-colored petal-like bracts are the show.  Most of the other Cornus species in California lack the showy bracts and instead have sort-of showy clusters of small flowers with white petals.   The fruits are large, brightly colored compound drupes.

This dogwood shrub was tall enough to call a tree, and was growing on a stream bank by Orr Springs Road, not far from Montgomery woods.  I don't see them here on the coast very often, so its was a nice sight to see on my drive inland.

I can't find a straight answer on the origin of the name dogwood.  Apparently there are dogwood in the new and the old world, and the word seems to have been around since the 1500s, leaving plenty of time for various theories to develop: one is that the name alludes to Hecate's hounds of Greek mythology, and another that it comes from dagwood, as in dagger (dog wood has very hard wood, good for that sort of thing). 

Photos from April 30.