Flowering Plants (04)

September 22, 2005

Akebia quinata

Updated Sept. 22, 2005 at 8:50am: see comments re: seedling establishment in recent years.

Long-time readers of Botany Photo of the Day will recall a previous photograph of the female flower of this plant. Here is an image of the fruit taken five months later, from the Alpine Garden at UBC.

Five-leaf akebia, or chocolate vine, is native to southeast Asia. Introduced in 1845 to the eastern United States as an ornamental, Akebia quinata has revealed a tendency to be invasive in that region (all of the groundcover in that photograph). The individual plants at UBC are prolific growers (though almost 20 years old), ~~but seedlings have never been noted~~ and seedlings have now been noted in recent years (see comments) ~~despite favourable conditions nearby~~.

I've disturbed the fruit in the lower mid-left to show the black seeds. The gelatinous substance surrounding the seeds is edible, and tastes mildly sweet.

In BPotD news, I think the email notification is fixed regarding yesterday's future-dated postings problem. I'll confirm that it's working sometime in the next few days. If you're an email subscriber, you missed yesterday's posting on Hordeum jubatum, so please be sure to read it (the first comment also has an explanation of the future-dated postings problem).

Also, during correspondence with Apple, I learned that they felt that the Botany Photo of the Day Widget is best categorized under “webcam” (and they've moved the Astronomy Picture of the Day Widget there), so here's the direct link: Botany Photo of the Day Widget. If you're a Macintosh Tiger user, download and install it to get BPotD on your Dashboard daily!

Photography resource link: For inspiration, the photography of Ross Wordhouse, self-proclaimed “panoscape” photographer.

Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 3:04 AM| Comments (11)

September 21, 2005

Hordeum jubatum

These are scanned seeds of Hordeum jubatum, commonly known as foxtail barley or squirreltail barley. Lauren Brown, in “Grasses - An Identification Guide”, writes “Considered beautiful by botanists and a noxious weed by ranchers because the bristles pierce animals' tongues and can cause serious injury”. As you might surmise, this grass is listed as a noxious weed in many states and provinces with ranchland.

The long swirling parts are variously awns (bristle-like growths extending from the lemma) or long glumes. The family Poaceae has its own set of inflorescence terminology, illustrated succinctly on this page, though a bit on the small side. A larger, but more diagrammatic version, can be seen here (scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on “spikelets” under Poaceae).

I should mention two other things: 1) the scale at the bottom of the photograph is in millimetres; and 2) this scan was done by Eric La Fountaine, and yes, the seeds were carefully placed.

Botany resource link: In case you missed it in yesterday's comments, Dr. Tom Volk (University of Wisconsin - Lacrosse) has compiled a huge online resource for fungi, including the Fungus of the Month.

Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 12:00 AM| Comments (1)

September 19, 2005

Hedychium coccineum 'Tara'

A big thank you to “Weekend Gardener” of Coquitlam, British Columbia, who submitted this photograph via the Botany Photo of the Day Submissions on the UBC Botanical Garden Forums. Much appreciated!

'Tara' ginger lily has been the subject of debate among Hedychium taxonomists: Hedychium coccineum 'Tara' or Hedychium gardnerianum 'Tara' or a hybrid? I won't go into a discussion of the topic, because it is covered in detail here, but I will mention that this photograph was submitted as H. gardnerianum 'Tara', while I've chosen to use what we've settled on at UBC with the plants in our collection, H. coccineum 'Tara'.

The long-exserted stamens and stigmas of the flowers of this genus hint at an interesting pollination mechanism. In most flowers, pollen attaches itself to the main body of the insect. In Hedychium, however, pollen transfer occurs via the wings of moths and butterflies. The lepidopterans brush their wings against the floral parts as they move from flower to flower seeking nectar, spreading and pollinating as they go. (source: Zomlefer's “Guide to Flowering Plant Families”, 1994).

For a gardening perspective on Hedychium coccineum 'Tara', check out RHS Rosemoor Garden's Plant of the Month for October 2004, complete with cultivation and propagation information.

Botany resource link: Scott's Botanical Links. If you're the sort of person who likes daily botanical offerings, you will likely enjoy Dr. Scott Russell's Botanical Links. Since 1996(!), Dr. Russell of the University of Oklahoma has shared a link to a botanical resource, with accompanying commentary and a rating. Email and RSS feeds available!

Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 1:30 AM| Comments (3)

September 18, 2005

Ulmus parvifolia 'Seiju'

The species Ulmus parvifolia grows to 20m in its native southeast Asia, but this dwarf cultivar, 'Seiju' Chinese elm or 'Seiju' lacebark elm, will only reach 2-3m under the best of conditions. In this case, though, the physical restrictions on growth caused by being planted in a trough likely means this tree will not grow much beyond its current size. 'Seiju' is a sport selection of Ulmus parvifolia 'Hokkaido'; 'Seiju' is differentiated by its larger leaves and faster rate of growth.

Trough gardening has long been associated with growing alpine plants, including dwarf trees and shrubs. If you're interested to learn more about troughs, check out this article on trough gardening for tips on how to build a trough and selecting appropriate plants. On the topic of alpine plants, the Alpine Garden Club of British Columbia is holding its Fall Plant Sale on September 25 - always plenty of interesting plants available!

Photography resource link: Understanding Histograms via The Luminous Landscape's Tutorial Series. Nine times out of ten, I look at the histogram after taking a photograph and decide from that whether I need to take another photograph with a different exposure. How important is this? Well, the article concludes with: “It's the greatest invention since the built-in light meter”.

Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 2:13 AM| Comments (2)

September 17, 2005

Agastache aurantiaca

I would call this orange hyssop, but this plant is generally sold as orange hummingbird mint (you can guess which name would likely sell more plants). It's native to Mexico, but grows on mountains, so it performs well as a perennial in more temperate climes. Like most members of the genus Agastache, its foliage is aromatic when crushed, but I wasn't able to identify a related scent to be able to describe it to you. I've read “anise” and “licorice” used to identify the scent, but that wasn't my experience.

Botany resource link: Illustrations of Carex spp. (sedges) from Mackenzie's “North American Cariceae”. UBC Botanical Garden received Mackenzie's two-volume set as a donation yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised to find the illustrations from this magnificent work available online.

Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 12:37 AM| Comments (0)

September 16, 2005

Oenothera macrocarpa subsp. fremontii 'Lemon Silver'

As you can tell from this photograph taken in the Alpine Garden a couple days ago, autumn is arriving. There are, however, many flowers still in bloom locally, including this cheery 'Lemon Silver' Fremont evening-primrose.

Pollinated by hawk-moths at night, flowers of the species Oenothera macrocarpa open in the evening and begin to close the following morning, lasting only the one day (see Reproductive biology in Onagraceae (Raven, 1979) for a comprehensive examination of how plants in this family reproduce, including mechanisms that they employ to ensure outcrossing). I've added a close-up photograph of the flower, so that you can see the cross-shaped stigma, typical of many plants in the family Onagraceae (see more examples in the Oenothera Image Gallery).

I promised a BPotD announcement for users of the Macintosh Tiger Operating System (10.4). Here it is:

I'm grateful to Steve Milano (aka Do-Boy Software) and BJ Heinley (aka Built By Robots) for teaming up and producing a very slick Botany Photo of the Day Widget! (BPotD widget mirror on the Do-Boy Software site). If you are wondering what a widget is, visit Apple's site for a demo.

If you are a Macintosh Tiger user, you can download the Botany Photo of the Day Widget directly from here (UBC site - no worries about bandwidth) or here (Do-Boy Software site). The BPotD widget has been accepted by Apple in its catalogue of widgets, but right now it's listed in the “webcam” category, so the link to it is likely going to change. Still, you can download it from Apple's site by following Widget Browser -> Just Added -> Botany Photo of the Day Widget. The advantage of downloading from Apple is that the widget might find its way into the Top Ten, giving the widget a much higher profile (and frankly, it deserves to be in the Top Ten - Steve and BJ did top-notch work!). Thanks Steve and BJ!

In other news, one of the small joys of running a weblog is discovering who is linking to you. I was pleasantly surprised to see a weblog in Andorra (a country of 70500 people) linking to BPotD: La imatge del dia, where, if my translation of Catalan is correct, the poster states, “and the newest [of daily image sites], but incredible, Botany Photo of the Day”. Thanks for the compliment!

And in yet more BPotD news, I've installed a “Commenter Email Whitelist”, which is good news for frequent commenters. I have always considered comment moderation a necessary evil; although most of the over ten thousand spam comments I've received over the past five months have been blocked by the various tools I use, a few still slip through that are only caught by comment moderation. The whitelist allows me to flag known commenters as “trusted” and in no need of moderation. So, I've started to do that for some people who have commented frequently. The best way to find out if you are on the whitelist is to comment. If you're not on it and you're a frequent commenter, please don't be offended - I've certainly missed some people in the first round. If you're not on it and don't comment often, the only way to get on is to comment frequently enough that I begin to recognize your name and email address and I will eventually add you.

Photography resource link: Petteri Sulonen's Mastering Wide-Angle tutorial illustrates the different techniques required for the challenges and complications of wide-angle photography. Wide-angle photography is very alluring to me, but disheartening so far - my ratio of “keepers” to junkers is very low.

Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 1:46 AM| Comments (5)

September 15, 2005

Mammillaria elongata 'Crest'

Much to the chagrin of zombies everywhere, this is not —and I quote— “BR-R-R-RAIN-NSss”, but rather a “brain cactus”. This is a morphological variant of the species Mammillaria elongata DC., or golden star cactus. The distinct morphology of this and other brain cacti, known as cristate or crested growth, is caused by an apical meristem gone awry.

The shoot apical meristem is the site of growth that elongates the plant. It's located at the growing tip (apex). In the case of this cristate variant, the apical meristem no longer performs cell division from a single point. Instead, the formation of new tissue occurs as cells divide laterally from an elongated meristem. For another example of cristation, see this photograph of a cristate saguaro cactus (you can also read some speculation on the whys of cristation in saguaros: Crested Saguaros - What is the Rhyme or Reason? in PDF format).

As you can tell, this is a “studio shot”. This cactus is one of roughly one hundred different kinds of plants for sale at this year's Indoor Plant Sale (more information). UBC's Friends of the Garden have been enthusiastically running this event for twenty-eight years. As far as I'm concerned, it's the best selection of plants I've seen yet (I've seen six sales), and the selection includes some particularly striking carnivorous plants. Please consider attending today or tomorrow, if you're a local reader. All funds raised support research and education at the garden.

In BPotD news, there'll be an announcement tomorrow for Macintosh Tiger users.

Botany resource link: Linked above, Cal's Plant of the Week (by Cal Lemke of the University of Oklahoma). Cal is the botany greenhouse grower, so the plants he features tend to be tropicals; the site is a good complement to BPotD for that reason, since it is rarely convenient for me to feature such plants.

Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 12:43 AM| Comments (10)

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