Non-native spotlight: Rosy Sandcrocus

I'd never seen one of these little flowers before - a rosy sandcrocus (Romulea rosea). It was blooming by the road next to the Little River Airport. I was on my bike and almost missed it because it's very small and stealthy. It was worth a stop for a closer look. It reminded me a little of blue-eyed grass, or a brodiaea lily. Turns out the first is close-ish - at least they're in the same family - the Iris family.

Rosy sandcrocus isn't a California native. It evolved in South Africa, was cultivated as an ornamental, and has become naturalized in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and California. I think they're only just becoming recognized as naturalized here, or perhaps they're rare, as I don't find them in wildflower guides.

I'm mostly passing over including non-native plants in this blog, but that's just my prejudice against the invasive ones. There are some very pretty, more benign introduced plants, and introduced plants are big presence in our wild flora. California has a welcoming Mediterranean climate that many plants brought from similar places around the world (South Africa, Southwestern Australia, parts of Chile, and of course the Mediterranean itself) have made themselves at home here.

Photos taken April 2.

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.