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Botany Photo of the Day
In science, beauty. In beauty, science. Daily.
November 6, 2009
Cypripedium montanum
These photographs are from my first-ever encounter with Cypripedium montanum, which occurred this past June north of Lytton, British Columbia. I also photographed it a few weeks later northwest of La Grande, Oregon.
Mountain lady's slipper is another native of western North America, with its range extending east as far as south central Montana and north central Wyoming. Curiously, despite its main range extending as far north as central British Columbia in the interior and only to a small portion of southwestern British Columbia along the coast, it can also be found in the Alaska Panhandle -- a discontinuous distribution with a minimum gap of 750km.
The Flora of North America lists Cypripedium montanum as having a habitat of "mesic to dry (rarely wet) coniferous, deciduous, and broadleaf evergreen forests, openings, and thickets, around shrubs on open slopes". Today's photographs were taken along the exposed banks of a roadside, and all of the half-dozen or so plants I observed on this trip were covered in gravel-dust. More photographs of this species are available from the Burke Museum: Cypripedium montanum.
In Daniel Moerman's exhaustive Native American Ethnobotany, only one reference is made to a First Nations use of this species. Members of the Okanagan-Colville Nation purportedly used an infusion of the leaves and stalks as a reproductive aid (the infusion was "taken by a pregnant woman to have a small baby"). Source reference for this was a 1980 report by Nancy Turner and colleagues of the Royal British Columbia Museum, "Ethnobotany of the Okanagan-Colville Indians of British Columbia and Washington. As an incidental aside, Dr. Turner worked as a summer student at UBC Botanical Garden sometime in the 1970s.
Lastly, another note for local readers. I'll be presenting on Monday night (number five of at least seven this month), this time on the topic of "Plants of Southern Interior British Columbia" to the Langley Garden Club. If you'd like to attend, the meeting begins at 7:30pm in Murrayville Hall at 21667 48th Avenue (there will likely be a small guest fee to attend).
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 3:40 PM | Comments (7)
November 5, 2009
Arctostaphylos columbiana
Lindsay Bourque wrote today's entry (update on Nov. 6: I neglected to mention these are also Lindsay's photographs - Daniel):
This is a plant that is at its best in tough environments--as long as it has good drainage! Commonly known as hairy manzanita, Arctostaphylos columbiana is found along the Coast-Cascade Ranges from Sonoma County, California, north to Vancouver Island and southwest coastal mainland British Columbia, with the largest population in southwestern Oregon. It is found primarily in evergreen forests and requires fire to break seed dormancy and maximize germination.
Hairy manzanita hybridizes with Arctostaphylos uva-ursi (kinnikinnick) to produce Arctostaphylos × media. It also hybridizes with Arctostaphylos nevadensis (pinemat manzanita ) in the Mount Hood region of Oregon, where ranges of the two species overlap. Manzanita is Spanish for "little apples" alluding to the appearance of the small, brown fruits. Some native people reputedly ate the berries, although they are said to cause severe constipation.
A note for local readers by Daniel: Speaking of southwest Oregon, I'll be presenting tonight (late notice, I know) at the Native Plant Society of British Columbia South Coast meeting, held at VanDusen Botanical Garden. The topic is "A Botanical Journey through the Siskiyou Mountains", and I'll be presenting with (occasional BPotD contributor) Ron Long and Virginia Skilton. Meeting starts at 7pm, hope to see you there!
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 2:45 PM | Comments (18)
November 4, 2009
Crataegus mexicana
Lindsay again writes today's entry:
Thank you to Eric in SF@Flickr (also of Orchid Photos.org) for submitting today's photograph (original image | Botany Photo of the Day Flickr Pool).
Native to Mexico and northern South America, Crataegus mexicana is one of 135-280 species of hawthorns (the wide range is indicative of an ongoing taxonomic argument). The species pictured here, commonly called Mexican hawthorn, can often be found under the scientific name Crataegus pubescens, but that name has since been rejected in favour of Crataegus mexicana.
Mexicans often call this species tejocote. Many food products, like concentrated pulp, jam, jellies, and marmalades can be processed from this fruit, making it of economical importance. Some of the largest plantations of Crataegus mexicana flourish in Mexico, where upwards of 24 000 tons/year are produced. Cultivated forms of the tree can be nearly thornless and large-fruited, whereas the wild species is generally thorny and small-fruited.
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 11:00 AM | Comments (12)
November 3, 2009
Abernethy Forest
Lindsay Bourque is again responsible for today's written entry. Lindsay writes:
Thank you to Stephen Buchan@Flickr for supplying today's photograph (original image | Botany Photo of the Day Flickr Pool) and the following summary of the plant community in the image:
"Tall, straight Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) forming an open canopy with birch (Betula sp.). The luxuriant ground flora includes bracken (Pteridium aquilinum), blaeberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) and heather (Calluna vulgaris), not to mention abundant mosses and lichens."
Abernethy Forest is located on the southern fringe of the Spey Valley to the north of the Cairngorms in the eastern highlands of Scotland. It is a remnant of the ancient Caledonian Forest, which constituted the westernmost outpost of the boreal forest in Europe. Believed to have formed at the end of the last ice age, the Caledonian Forest is estimated to have covered 15,000 square kilometers. Today, approximately 1% remains spread throughout a handful of isolated locations.
However, the forest is being extended southwards by both natural regeneration and restorative reforestation, a growing movement in Scotland. During my time as a tree planter in British Columbia, I remember when tree planting in Scotland would become a hot topic in planting camps; many planters set out overseas to reforest the rolling hills of Scotland.
Botany resource link (added by Daniel): Eva Johansson, of West Kootenay Plants, sent along the following link to my attention, and I think it's very worthwhile of sharing: Fritillaria imperialis (aka imperial crown) via Poemas del río Wang.
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 3:45 PM | Comments (13)
November 2, 2009
Euphorbia amygdaloides
Lindsay is responsible for today's entry. Lindsay writes:
Thanks to Lotus Johnson aka ngawangchodron@Flickr for submitting today's photo (original image | Botany Photo of the Day Flickr Pool).
Prominently featured in this photograph are the cyathia (single: cyathium) of woodspurge. The cyathium is a kind of "false flower" consisting of a cup-shaped involucre bearing several minute stamens (male flowers) and a pistillate flower consisting of an ovary on a long stalk (pedicel). These features are characteristic of every inflorescence in the genus Euphorbia (and its closest relatives), and are found nowhere else in the plant kingdom.
Researchers at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew have studied the origins of the cyathium and concluded that it evolved from a more open grouping of flowers called a thyrse. In the thyrse of Euphorbia's ancestors, the terminal female flower was surrounded by cymes of male flowers. With this kind of precursor, researchers presume that the cyathia were eventually formed by a strong condensation of the inflorescence. One of the conclusions derived from this study was that the cyathium is neither a flower nor an inflorescence, but rather a "hybrid" in which regulatory genes that normally control features of individual flowers have overlapped into control of the inflorescence.
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 7:00 PM | Comments (5)
October 30, 2009
Tacca chantrieri
Lindsay is again the author of today's entry:
Thank you to Brent Miller aka foliosus@Flickr who submitted today's photograph and inspired today's Hallowe'en entry (original image | Botany Photo of the Day Flickr Pool)!.
Historically, Hallowe'en is thought to have its origins in Samhain, a Celtic festival marking the end of the "lighter half" & the beginning of the "darker half" in the Gaulish calendar. What better to mark the arrival of the "darker half" of the year than this haunting beauty, Tacca chantrieri. Native to southeast Asia, Tacca chantrieri carries the mischievous common names of bat or devil flower. Bat flower is a reference to the dark bracts with prominent venation, while devil flower refers to the filaments that can grow to 70cm, terminating in a "forked tail".
A menacing reputation follows this captivating, and somewhat unsettling, flower. Some people believe that the strange "eyes" appear to follow you around the room. Superstitions in southeast Asia include a belief that it is unlucky to look into the eyes of Tacca chantrieri and / or a belief that it brings death close to oneself and one's family.
For more photographs, see Tacca chantrieri at the Wikimedia Commons.
Daniel adds: I wanted to let you know that the garden's web site will be unavailable on Monday, November 2 beginning at ~9am PST. We are upgrading the server. I hope the outage is short, but it's impossible to predict what we may need to troubleshoot to get everything up and running again.
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 10:58 PM | Comments (14)
October 29, 2009
Macrotyphula juncea
...and a thank you to Randal Mindell of UBC Botanical Garden, who wrote today's entry:
If anyone is wondering what the term gregarious means in a mycological context, Daniel's photographs today do a fairly good job of illustrating it. Macrotyphula juncea is a relatively widespread, yet under-reported fungus, documented across both hemispheres at diverse longitudinal gradients. According to David Aurora's Mushrooms Demystified, it is typically found on decaying leaf litter. Here in the garden, we found it atop maple leaves in late October.
This genus falls within the fungal phylum Basidiomycota, better known as the mushrooms. While Macrotyphula juncea does not look like a typical mushroom, what you are seeing in the corresponding photographs are above-ground "fruiting bodies" that bear the same characteristic spore-bearing structures (basidia) as all members of the phylum. The solitary, thread-like fruiting bodies of this species are less than a millimeter in diameter and are observed in our massive population to approach 10 centimeters in height. While their surfaces appear remarkably smooth to the naked eye, under the microscope, you can see that it is entirely covered by spore-bearing basidia.
Can you eat it? In David Aurora's infamous Mushrooms Demystified, the edibility of Macrotyphula juncea is described by the author as "utterly irrelevant--a couple hundred would be needed for a mouthful!".
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 2:44 PM | Comments (15)
