California Native Plant Week #6

Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree Forest: photo by Cliff Hutson

While I am hesitant to once again write about a plant and perhaps draw too much attention to one of our over-pressured national parks, this tree is one of California's most iconic species.  

The park is named for the Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia) native to the Mojave Desert, but it does occur outside those boundaries. And, sadly, some say that in the not too distant future it may no longer grow there.  

California Native Plant Week Takes a Different Turn This Year

A thoughtful essay from CNPS:  Native plants can offer hope, fun, and healthy distraction during stay-at-home orders.

Another way to connect with nature:  Birds

"Millions of people who aren’t frontline workers in the COVID-19 pandemic are adjusting to a new routine that means staying home — or close to it. Many are seeking solace outside."

But, wait, there's more!

There are plenty of other fun activities easy to enjoy while maintaining safe social distancing.

California Native Plant Week #4

Dogwood

Dogwood: photo by Cliff Hutson

Our native Dogwood (Cornus sericea, syn. C. stolonifera, Swida sericea) is a shrub found throughout northern and western North America; and beyond. Common  names include Redtwig Dogwood, Red-rood, American Dogwood, and (subsp. occidentalis) Western Dogwood.

Cornus sericea Berries: photo by Cliff Hutson

California Native Plant Week #3

 Common Monkey Flower

Common Monkey Flower: photo by Cliff Hutson

Yellow flowers that are popular with bumble bees.

California Native Plant Week #2

California Bay

California Bay: photo by Cliff Hutson

Native Plant Week: April 11- 19, 2020

Umbellularia californica: photo by Cliff Hutson

California Native Plant Week #1

Apache Plume

Apache Plume: photo by Cliff Hutson

Wildflower Week

RSABG Badge: photo by Cliff Hutson

Wildflower Week

This past weekend kicked off Wildflower Week at the the botanic garden where I work. This prompted me to muse about one of my personal favorites.

Hooker’s Evening Primrose

Oenothera elata hookeri: photo by Cliff Hutson

Hooker’s evening primrose, Oenothera elata hookeri, is a member of a genus of about 145 species of herbaceous flowering plants native to the Americas. It is the type genus of the family Onagraceae. Common names include evening primrose, suncups, and sundrops.

The appellation “evening” comes from the habit of the blooms of many species opening in twilight. An interesting aspect of evening primroses is that their flowers open very quickly, some in under a minute. This occurs because the cells at the margins of the sepals are connected in a zipper-like structure. As the petals grow, they break through the zipper and quickly spill out.

The hookeri subspecies is native to California and also grows in much of western and central North America. It is tall for an evening primrose, reaching heights of up to six feet. It flowers from June through September with yellow blossoms that are 2 to 3 inches wide. One of the most distinctive features of the flower is the stigma, which has four branches in an X shape.

Calflora says that this plant generally inhabits moist places in coastal or somewhat inland areas at lower elevations. Other sources state that it can be found on open slopes, road banks, and grassy areas from the plains to the mountains. One nursery, which carries it, maintains that it will survive drought and flooding, sun, wind and cold.

The common name always seemed a bit risqué to me. But, it is actually named for Sir William Jackson Hooker (1785-1865), professor of botany and director of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew in the mid 19th century and author of several botanical works. Among his friends and colleagues were David Douglas, Thomas Nuttall, and Asa Gray, after whom he named the genus Grayia. How is that for name dropping?

California Dodder

California Dodder: photo by Cliff Hutson

The astute reader of this blog may recall that I am a Nature Interpreter at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden (RSABG) and lead tours for school children and adults. It was also my pleasure to have written the “Plant of the Month” article for “Oak Notes”, an in-house newsletter, for four years.

One of the sites I refer to, among the usual suspects such as Wikipedia and CNPS, when writing about a plant is maintained by the Consortium of California Herbaria  which provides information about California vascular plant specimens that are housed in participant herbaria. One can search on just about any plant and obtain a list of accessions from around the state.

California Dodder (Cuscuta californica), hits close to home as it has records dating from 1897 to 2009 for specimens found in and around Claremont. Two of these are housed in the RSABG herbarium. One was collected from the Bernard Field Station, just to the east. The other was found along Thompson Creek where I often see the plant.

Cuscuta californica, also called Chaparral Dodder, is an annual parasitic herb or vine that is native to California. It is also found outside of California, but is confined to western North America. Dodder is readily identified by its threadlike, hairless, yellow, orange, or red shoots which twine around host plants eventually creating a tangled mat. One notable feature is that it does not usually have roots that reach the ground. Instead, knoblike organs along the shoot (haustoria) penetrate the host stem. Shoots either lack leaves or have very tiny red, yellow, or orange scalelike leaves pressed close to the stem. It tends to bloom from May through October. The white flowers are tiny, only about 3 to 6 millimeters wide. The fruits are even smaller.

Dodder once had its own family, but it is now consigned to CONVOLVULACEAE, the Morning Glory Family. The epithet Cuscuta seemingly comes from Cuscu'ta a name of Arabic derivation meaning "dodder”. The common name, Chaparral Dodder, tips us to one of its habitats. It is also found through out the state in many other plant communities such as forests and grasslands. And, of course, “the City of Trees and PhDs”.

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Great Basin Sagebrush

Artemisia tridentata

Great Basin Sagebrush: photo by Cliff Hutson

Great Basin sagebrush, Artemisia tridentata, is closely associated with the Great Basin Desert which lies east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  It additionally occurs in the southern Sierra and Peninsular ranges. The herbarium at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden even contains specimens collected in Los Angeles, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties. Neither is the plant limited to the Sagebrush Scrub community. It can be found in, among others, desert scrub, pinyon-juniper woodland, and Joshua tree woodland.

These habits clearly represent a vast range in climate, soil types, competition with other plants, and animals. One of plant’s features that makes for this adaptability is that it has two sets of roots. Shallow roots that lie just below the surface of the soil collect any precipitation that falls. A very strong central root may go as deep as thirteen feet, frequently tapping in to the water table. 

Artemisia tridentata: photo by Cliff Hutson

Also known as Big Sagebrush, it is an evergreen shrub, although one of my sources described it as “evergray” due to the lovely gray-green color of its leaves. The hairy leaves are, as described in Jepson eFlora, “Generally wedge-shaped, generally (0)3(5)-toothed or lobed at tip”. Aye, there's the rub. The appellation “tridentata” means three-toothed, but on some plants the leaves have no teeth at all. Some may have little lobes that are more bumps than teeth. Another may have teeth that are fang-like in appearance. Keep in mind, too, that sagebrush is not sage, even though it can have a similar tangy fragrance. 

The many-branched shrub grows from a couple of feet in height to six feet tall, and about as wide. Small, or insignificant, yellow flowers in long, loosely arranged tubular clusters pop out in late summer or early fall. The production of edible seeds completes the cycle. 

Fun with Words

Wordle

Sometimes Wordle works for me. Sometimes it don't. This example was generated from a very small sampling of my Plant of the Month articles.

Wordle is a tool for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. It should also work from a RSS feed, but that was not cutting it for me tonight. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. And, it proves out that when one writes about the native plants of California, the name of the state will be very eminent.

You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to your own desktop to use as you wish.