Monthly Archives: April 2017

Show Me Your Auricles!

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Recent chatter on various internet forums and mention of The Trout Lily Project got me interested in learning more about the Erythroniums. Twenty four species of them are native to North America; of these, E. albidum (see yesterday’s post) and E. americanum (pictured in this post) are by far the most widespread. All of the others are west coast or midwest species, with two exceptions: E. rostratum and E. umbilicatum. The latter is found in the southeast, as far north as Maryland.

Maybe.

USDA PLANTS Database shows it present in Maryland, but lacks county-level data. The Biota of North America Project shows it present in Montgomery, Cecil, and Garret counties, while The Flora of North America shows it in the southern part of the state. The Maryland Biodiversity Project has no records for it.

Two characteristics distinguish E. americanum from E. umbilicatum. The latter has a dimple on top of the ovary, where the style attaches, while the former has a persistent style that attaches without a dimple. The other difference is the presence of auricles (“ears”) at the inside base of each tepal of E. americanum; E. umbilicatum does not have auricles.

Also, anther color varies from pure yellow to dark red in E. americanum. There is some thought that E. umbilicatum has more purplish anthers, but this characteristic is deemed unreliable. So to tell the difference, you have to look at the ovaries and look for auricles.

Which is why every time I see a dark-anthered trout lily, I’m down on knees and elbows, glasses off, gently poking back the petals and squinting at the insides.

I would love to be able to submit a record of dimpled trout lily to MBP. So far, no luck. All the trout lilies I’ve looked at have auricles and lack dimples.

Whenever possible I photo-illustrate my posts with my own pictures, but of course I have none of dimpled trout lily. For pictures and more information, go to the link at the start of this post. Also go to the MBP page for American trout lily and scroll down to Bill Harms’ photo of tepals and ovary, then have a look at Carolina Nature’s dimpled trout lily page.

UPDATE fellow blogger and citizen botanist botanybill sent this photo of E. americanum, Thanks for showing us the auricles, Bill!

How to Shoot a Trout Lily

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Hike for ten minutes to the one place where you know white trout lily grows. Realize that it’s a cloudy day and the flowers will likely be closed. Get annoyed with yourself when you see them closed and vow to come back on a sunny day.

Next sunny day, hike the ten minutes again. Spend awhile scouting the area to find the best candidate. Praise your luck that it’s growing on a slope up and not too far from the trail. Take a few pictures. Look at pictures on the camera monitor. Realize that the other plants that didn’t seem to be in the way are really in the way. Carefully move the invasive vine out of the picture and shoot again. Realize that the good angle you have for shooting includes some basal leaves of golden ragwort that won’t stay in focus. Look around for a stick to place atop the leaves to get them out of the way without damaging them. Take a few more shots. Realize that the sun has gone behind a cloud and the lovely golden glow is gone.

Review pictures in camera. Realize that the dead stems of last year’s asters are making funny vertical lines behind the lily. Carefully snap off dead stems. Take a few more pictures. Realize that the large dead oak leaf on the ground is reflecting light in a particularly annoying way. Move said oak leaf. Move a few others while you’re at it.

Take a few more pictures. Realize that the golden ragwort leaves popped up again and get them back down with a heavier stick.

Hear hikers approaching. Stand up so you don’t look like a total fool doing a poor approximation of downward-facing dog. Brush dirt off jeans and realize there’s a load of laundry to be washed in your near future. Remember how painful lone-star tick bites are and realize there’s also a shower in your near future.

Re-establish self on ground and try some different angles. Realize that elbows are getting scraped and fetch bandana from daypack to use as cushion. Review pictures again and realize that with new angles come new bits of plant material causing odd lines and reflections and other composition-destroying things. Clear area and try again. Note that sun is back out and shoot like mad while you can.

Decide that you need to better isolate the subject from the background and start playing with aperture settings. Take series of pix from f/4 to f/8. Repeat from different angles.

Stand up and try to work kinks out of neck. Take pictures of something else to clear brain.

Go back to shooting trout lily.

Look at cell phone and realize forty minutes have passed since your first picture.

Take a few more pix of the other trout lilies just in case and carefully replace vines and dead oak leaves and remove sticks from golden ragwort leaves so as to leave no trace.

White trout lily (Erythronium albidum) is listed as S2/threatened in Maryland. USDA PLANTS, BONAP, and the Maryland Biodiversity Project all have different records of where in Maryland it can be found, but they all agree it’s in Montgomery County. I first spotted this patch in 2010, and though I’ve missed seeing the plants in bloom some years, I always visit to check on them.

Did I get the shot I wanted? Not really. But I had a lot of fun trying.

Desert Fabs

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Fabaceous plants, that is. For the next several weeks I’m likely to be posting back-and-forth between finds in Anza-Borrego and in the Maryland piedmont.

Astragalus crotalariae
Salton milkvetch

Astragalus is the largest genus of plants known, with about 3,000 species, around 350 of which are native to North America. A. crotalariae has a limited range, found only in the Sonoran desert, in Northern Mexico and a few parts of southern California and southwestern Arizona. It’s a perennial that grows to about two feet tall.

Lupinus arizonicus
Arizona lupine

There are about 200 species of lupines worldwide, with maybe 70 or so in California. It’s hard to say how many are in the Sonoran Desert, since many of the species have multiple subspecies. A quick glance at several internet sources leads me to think that maybe there are one to two dozen.

L. arizonicus is native to the Sonoran and Mojave deserts. It’s a desert ephemeral, growing only in years when there’s been enough rain, and reaching to about a foot and a half tall, Depending on which authority you consult there are several subspecies; interestingly, several of the subspecies have their own varieties, for example Lupinus arizonicus ssp. arizonicus var. arizonicus and Lupinus arizonicus ssp. arizonicus var. barbatulus. I have no idea which one is pictured here.

Lupinus sparsiflorus
Coulter’s lupine

I found a long swath of these southwest of Borrego Springs, on the other side of the mountain range just outside Azna-Borrego Desert State Park proper, along the shoulder of San Felipe Road. I wasn’t sure at first if they were Arizona lupine or one of the other species.

The color was different, but that’s an unreliable characteristic. The plants were shorter and smaller overall, but that could have something to do with local growing conditions. Then  I found a good description of both species. L. arizonicus has mostly glabrous (smooth) leaves, while L. sparsiflorus is ciliate (hairy), especially at the margins.

Psorothamnus schottii
indigo bush, Schott’s dalea

This six foot tall shrub has a similar range to the Astragalus (that is, rather limited parts of the Sonoran Desert). When it blooms it’s just covered in lightly fragrant blue-purple flowers. And bees.

Consanguinity?

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Yesterday’s post had a quote about twinleaf being distinct from Sanguinaria and Podophyllum. All three have their similarities, especially in the flower, which in each case is large and white with numerous petals. Twinleaf is in the genus Jeffersonia, which has only two species, while both Sanguinaria and Podophyllum are (currently) monotypic genera. The latter is represented by P. peltatum, mayapple or maypop, which like twinleaf is placed in the barberry family (Berberidaceae). The former is represented by S. canadensis, bloodroot, which is in the poppy family (Papaveraceae) and blooming now in the Maryland piedmont. I’ll write about maypop once they’re blooming and I can get some pictures.

Bloodroot is a perennial plant that forms colonies from the rhizome, so more likely than not if you find one, you’ll find others nearby. The roots contain a reddish-orange sap, hence the name Sanguinaria, which means bleeding. The plant stands a little less than a foot tall, with a single multi-lobed basal leaf that emerges with the single flower stalk; while still young the leaf clasps the stem, but as the flower fades it opens fully. Although it doesn’t have the mirror-image symmetry of the twinleaf, you can see why early botanists might have considered the two closely related. (Until fairly recently, taxonomy was based largely on flower and fruit morphology.)

The flower can be large (up to three inches in diameter), with eight or more petals, two sepals, numerous stamens, and a single pistil.

Bloodroot is one of the spring ephemerals, and has a wide native range, occurring in some areas to the west of the Mississippi River but primarily east of it, from northern Florida north into Canada. It’s listed as exploitably vulnerable in New York and special concern in Rhode Island.

Twinleaf Again

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In 1792, when Thomas Jefferson was serving as the US Secretary of State, his botanist friend Benjamin Smith Barton decided that twinleaf must be in a genus of its own, “distinct from the Sanguinaria and the Podophyllum”*, and dubbed it Jeffersonia binata.

Twinleaf now goes by the name Jeffersonia diphylla (Berberidaceae). It isn’t exactly rare, but it isn’t common, either. It ranges from western New York south through the Appalachians to northernmost Alabama, then northwest as far as southeastern Minnesota. In all the states where it’s found, it occurs in only a handful of areas. It’s currently listed as endangered in Georgia and New Jersey, and threatened in Iowa and New York. The Biota of North America Project shows it present in Montgomery County, Maryland, and all counties to the west, but the Maryland Biodiversity project has records for it only in Montgomery, Washington, and Allegany counties.

As I wrote last week, this is a plant whose blossoms last only a few days. I saw two twinleaf flowers on Tuesday. On Thursday, a few more were blooming but were closed up tight because of the overcast. And yesterday, I saw maybe a dozen flowers, most of which were already fading and starting to set seed.

Twinleaf is a delicate-looking plant, consisting of several tall-standing basal leaves, each of which is nearly bisected into mirror image pairs. The leafless flower stem bears a single large, white flower, which has four sepals, eight petals, eight stamens, and one pistil.

The plant itself persists for another month or two past flowering before going dormant.

This is the earliest I’ve seen it blooming in the six years I’ve been tracking it.

 

 

*Thomas Jefferson’s Garden Book, 1766 – 1824; Edwin Betts, editor