Wildflowers

[Turtle]

i wasn't happy with the bloom shot in the last post so i took some more. got a clean shot of the bloom and as a bonus a seed head that had developed as well. as the plant is not native, it is now dead. :lol:

Edited August 3, 2012 by Turtle

[Turtle]

went walkabout today to a suburban woodlot i've been eyeing for a while now. found plenty of flowers and 1 homeless camp. shot some flowers but didn't see any homeless to shoot. :lol: joking aside, i never go into the forest without availing myself of a sidearm, and while we do have an open-carry ordinance in my county i wasn't thinking along those lines today. when i spotted the camp i did a hasty retreat and made a wide skirt around it. no harm no foul.

 

anyway, i took 70+ photos and now in review i may have about a dozen i can use. i have a few hours of work to sort & id what i bagged. in retrospect i wish i had taken a cutting from this native, but it was abundant and i can go back with little trouble. note my walking stick with lanyard in the whole-plant view; it is 42" long/tall. here we goes thens.

 

rose spirea @ burke herbarium

 

rose spirea - Spiraea douglasii (aka Douglas' spirea, steeple bush, hardhack)

july 29, 2012

suburban woodlot

clark county washington - native

Edited August 3, 2012 by Turtle

[Turtle]

this prickly invader was fairly abundant as well. look, but don't touch. plenty of canada thistle -Cirsium arvense too, but my photos sucked and i have it in the thread from a year or too ago. inspite of its name, it is also introduced from eurasia.

 

bull thistle @ burke herbrium

 

bull thistle - Cirsium vulgare (aka common thistle)

july 29, 2012

suburban woodlot

clark county washington - introduced from eurasia

Edited August 3, 2012 by Turtle

[Turtle]

so thens, another native. i thought i had a flower pic in this thread but on review i see i was misundertaken. i am including a flower pic from a couple years ago and fortunately you can see a few of the leaves which look all-the-world like holly. i can't find a whole-plant view anywhere so this will have to do. EDIT: found that i took a whole-plant view today; now attached. :doh:

 

anyway, today's shot is of the fruit. they are edible, juicy, rather tart, and contain a fair-sized pip. this is another of our native berries that found its way into the native american diet. rather than my usual burke herbarium reference i am including a blurb from wikipedia which enumerates a number of other uses for this plant.

 

oregongrape

...Description

 

The plant grows to 1–5 m (3 ft 3 in–16 ft 5 in) tall. Its leathery leaves resemble holly and the stems and twigs have a thickened, corky appearance. The flowers, borne in late spring, are yellow.

 

Oregon-grape is used in gardens and natural landscaping similarly to barberry, as a plant suited for low-maintenance plantings and loose hedges. Oregon-grape is resistant to summer drought, tolerates poor soils, and does not create excessive leaf litter. Its berries attract birds.

 

The small purplish-black fruits, which are quite tart and contain large seeds, are included in smaller quantities in the traditional diets of Pacific Northwest aboriginal peoples, mixed with Salal or another sweeter fruit. Today they are sometimes used to make jelly, alone or mixed with salal.[1] Oregon grape juice can be fermented to make wine, similar to European barberry wine folk traditions, although it requires an unusually high amount of sugar.[2] The inner bark of the larger stems and roots of Oregon-grape yield a yellow dye; the berries give purple dye.[3] As the leaves of Oregon-grape are holly-like and resist wilting, the foliage is sometimes used by florists for greenery and a small gathering industry has been established in the Pacific Northwest. ...

 

 

tall oregongrape - Berberis aquifolium (aka holly-leaf Oregon-grape, shining Oregongrape)

july 29, 2012

suburban woodlot

clark county washington - native

Edited August 3, 2012 by Turtle

[Turtle]

another native fruit. i have no photos of the flowers; perhaps because they resemble blackberry flowers and so i never bothered to investigate. :doh: (flower photos at the burke link below.) unlike blackberry however, these plants carry no thorns. the berries are soft & delicate & quite tasty. those in the pictures and all others that i found today, i et. one of my fieldguides -Trees & Shrubs of Washington by C.P. Lyons- says native americans used the large leaves as food wrappers. :)

 

thimbleberry @ burke herbarium

 

thimbleberry - Rubus parviflorus

july 29, 2012

suburban woodlot

clark county washington - native

Edited August 3, 2012 by Turtle

[Turtle]

good photos, bad weed. :thumbs_up :thumbs_do i saw this plant flowering throughout the woodlot; some 40 acres or more. :omg:

 

tansy ragwort @ burke herbarium

 

 

tansy ragwort - Senecio jacobaea (aka tansy butterweed, stinking willie)

july 29, 2012

suburban woodlot

clark county washington - introduced from eurasia

Edited August 3, 2012 by Turtle

[Turtle]

so thens, nothing -apparently- puts the F back in Fun Flowering like Finding Fireweed. the woodlot was full of it, i've never seen it before, and rather than being another introduced weed as i was thinking (which is why i took so long to get to id'ing it), it turns out to be a most interesting native wildflower. fo shizzle i will going back to gather seeds, and i may try and go again soon and get some cleaner shots of the blooms. the flowers are rather large and the protruding style and stamens gave my autofocus a poor grasp on depth-of-field.

 

anyway, i'll put up the photos i have, my usual burke entry (that some sources give the genus as Epilobium and others as Chamerion did not help my searches any! :lol:), and a fascinating bit of ethnobotany. for the ethnobotany list i have quoted 1 entry from each tribe listed (~30), with a use they had for fireweed. the full entries at the link have multiple uses for each tribe as well as the methods of preparation & administration when known. everything from a panacea to a poison. F is For Fascinating.

 

fireweed @ burke herbarium

 

 

fireweed - Chamerion angustifolium

july 29, 2012

suburban woodlot

clark county washington - native

 

ethnobotanical history @ university of michigan

Abnaki Drug (Cough Medicine)

Alaska Native Food (Unspecified)

Algonquin, Tete-de-Boule Drug (Dermatological Aid)

Bella Coola Drug (Dermatological Aid)

Blackfoot Drug (Dermatological Aid)

Cheyenne Drug (Antihemorrhagic)

Chippewa Drug (Dermatological Aid)

Clallam Food (Beverage)

Cree, Woodlands Drug (Dermatological Aid)

Eskimo, Alaska Drug (Laxative)

Haisla Food (Unspecified)

Hanaksiala Fiber (Cordage)

Iroquois Drug (Analgesic)

Iroquois Drug (Witchcraft Medicine)

Kitasoo Other (Hunting & Fishing Item)

Kwakiutl Drug (Cancer Treatment)

Menominee Drug (Dermatological Aid)

Navajo, Kayenta Drug (Gastrointestinal Aid)

Ojibwa Drug (Dermatological Aid)

Okanagan-Colville Food (Forage)

Oweekeno Food (Unspecified)

Potawatomi Drug (Unspecified)

Quinault Fiber (Mats, Rugs & Bedding)

Saanich Food (Beverage)

Shuswap Other (Decorations)

Skokomish Drug (Tuberculosis Remedy)

Snohomish Drug (Throat Aid)

Swinomish Drug (Poison)

Tanana, Upper Food (Fodder)

Thompson Drug (Dermatological Aid)

Wet'suwet'en Food (Unspecified)

Edited August 3, 2012 by Turtle

[Turtle]

here's another new one on me. took a while to id as i was thinking vetch when i should have been thinking pea. even better i should have thought lyons and not burke. not only did i not locate the plant using burke's search tool, when i found it in lyons he gave details that i then discovered burke lacks. i found my specimen crawling across grasses and other wildflowers. i did take enough notice of the unusual stems and the tendrils to take a photograph. this will be an easy one to remember.

 

everlasting pea - Lathyrus latifolius (perennial pea, broadleaved peavine)

july 29, 2012

suburban woodlot

clark county washington - introduced

 

everlasting-pea @ burke herbarium

 

in Wildflowers of Washington, mr. lyons writes

Form: A climber on shrubs and fences. Easy to identify

Leaves: Important: Unusual wide wings border the stems. Leaves end in tendrils.

Edited August 3, 2012 by Turtle

[Turtle]

i haven't id'd the insect yet, though somewhere here i thought i put up photos of a similar bug on this plant that turned out to be a type of fly that mimics the appearance of a bee. :omg: this rare plant came up volunteer in my garden a few years back, as some of you recall. ah the botany of desire! :lol: one can never tire of saying suksdorf.

 

 

 

western yellow wood-sorrel - Oxalis suksdorfii (aka suksdorf wood-sorrel, western yellow wood-sorrel

july 11, 2012

suburban garden

clark county washington - native (rare)

Edited August 3, 2012 by Turtle

[labelwench]

Here is another of the pictures I took earlier this month. This one is Death Camus, the flowers were just starting to open and this specimen was growing beside the path in the mixed boreal forest on the back of our acreage. They are more prolific in the edge habitat and meadows and while they are poisonous, the horses are smart enough not to eat them. I have observed them getting a blade or two in their mouth when grazing and they will immediately release their grasp on that mouthful and begin to pay more attention to what they next bite into.

 

 

 

According to my book of wildflowers, this species appears to be Zygadenus elegans, a member of the Lily/liliaceae Family. The blooming time is late June to early August. When I first had horses, I was concerned about their presence and the fact that I had small children coming for riding lessons and so I was diligent in destroying any that I found. Now that I know that the horses will not ingest them and have no small children about on a regular basis, I have ceased my campaign against them. They have caused no harm and they are a most elegant native species. :)

[Turtle]

I might say I got lost, but I don't know where I was.

 

Springing up this week in my native Wildflower bed are the Arctic sweet coltsfoot. (coltsfoots? coltsfeet? :blink: ) Anyway, from 1 plant collected 2 or 3 years ago I now have no fewer than 18 buds shoosting up. I have since read they spread by rhizomes as well as seed. The leaves -from which the plant takes its name because of shape- do not show up until much later.

Just re-reading my source to post from Burke Herbarium and newly learned that there are Male & Female flowers!! Mmmmmm...I wonder if I have collected sterile seeds??? :doh: I hadn't tried planting any as the rhizome spread is doing well enough. Mmmmm...better pay more attention this season and maybe try some of my seeds.

 

On to the flowers then. Note the integumental fibers.

 

Arctic sweet coltsfoot - Petasites frigidus

 

Ethnobotanical uses from bed-stuffing to medicine.

Edited March 15, 2013 by Turtle

[LaurieAG]

here's another new one on me. took a while to id as i was thinking vetch when i should have been thinking pea. even better i should have thought lyons and not burke. not only did i not locate the plant using burke's search tool, when i found it in lyons he gave details that i then discovered burke lacks. i found my specimen crawling across grasses and other wildflowers. i did take enough notice of the unusual stems and the tendrils to take a photograph. this will be an easy one to remember.

I took the attached photos in my fathers garden recently. It looks very similar and it is a crawling vine. Any idea where it was introduced from?

[Turtle]

I took the attached photos in my fathers garden recently. It looks very similar and it is a crawling vine. Any idea where it was introduced from?

 

nice notice. :thumbs_up i'm not familiar with botanicals of Oz, and i don't recognize it as ours. did you ask yer Pop about it?

[LaurieAG]

nice notice. :thumbs_up i'm not familiar with botanicals of Oz, and i don't recognize it as ours. did you ask yer Pop about it?

Just found it Turtle, it's the same one but it's a European native introduced to the US and Australia according to the wiki.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lathyrus_latifolius

 

Lathyrus latifolius, the perennial peavine, perennial pea or everlasting pea, is a flowering plant of the genus Lathyrus in the legume family Fabaceae. It is native to Europe but is present on other continents, such as North America and Australia[1] , where it is an introduced species.

 

I also took photo's of an Allamanda or Golden Trumpet, a Central/South American vine that can go to shrub. I'm not sure what type it is but it looks like Allamanda cathartica. My late mum planted several around the garden.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allamanda

 

Edit: Second image wasn't Allamanda

Edited March 17, 2013 by LaurieAG

[Turtle]

Just found it Turtle, it's the same one but it's a European native introduced to the US and Australia according to the wiki.

 

http://en.wikipedia....yrus_latifolius

...

 

mmmmm...definitely a "pea-flower" form, but i can't see the stems. i did find a Lathyrus latifolius last year actually, and the stems have very distinctive wings. also, the leaves in your photo don't appear to match mine. i'll be back with the post link. :clock:

 

 

 

found it just a few posts back. post #331

Edited March 16, 2013 by Turtle

[LaurieAG]

mmmmm...definitely a "pea-flower" form, but i can't see the stems. i did find a Lathyrus latifolius last year actually, and the stems have very distinctive wings. also, the leaves in your photo don't appear to match mine. i'll be back with the post link. :clock:

The flowers are almost identical and the difference in the stems and leaves could be due to the different climate. It seems that all the images I captured show three groups of 3 tear shaped leaves at each branching point while yours are much narrower and the stems are thicker and flatter. I don't suppose Washington is sub tropical. We've had a very wet past 2 months with a temperature range between 20-28 degrees C so the vines have been spreading everywhere over the garden. The attached image shows one growing over a Bromeliad.

[Turtle]

The flowers are almost identical and the difference in the stems and leaves could be due to the different climate. It seems that all the images I captured show three groups of 3 tear shaped leaves at each branching point while yours are much narrower and the stems are thicker and flatter. I don't suppose Washington is sub tropical. We've had a very wet past 2 months with a temperature range between 20-28 degrees C so the vines have been spreading everywhere over the garden. The attached image shows one growing over a Bromeliad.

 

 

well, "pea-flowers" is a descriptive term used in botany to describe a wide class of flowers that do not necessarily belong to the same genus. (e.g. see Fabaceae Family ) i am unaware of any plant changing leaf number for any reason. the branching points of leaves & stems on plants is described by Phyllotaxis and it's genetically determined for each species. :bouquet: