In the park about one hour ten minutes, mostly sitting on a
boulder doing dissection and macro photography. 113 images. 46 keepers.
Once again, I had a short list of things to do. Once again,
it wasn’t accomplished. Too hot.
Once again, bad photos to deal with. I sat in the shade.
Tried to deal with slow shutter speeds. Tried to make use of patches of strong
light to work in. I was very tired. Impatient, of course.
*
I parked at the east end. I wanted to check the patch that I
supposed were Arnica, last year. I was too late to get adequate images last
year.
They are Arnica. My plant list has Arnica fulgens. Burke has
A. Fulgens and A. sororia as very similar, distinguished by ‘brown wool’ in the
axil of the lower leaves. A. sororia doesn’t
have it or, if ‘wool’ is present, it is white.
My photos don’t show the axils of the lower leaves, even so,
I believe these to be A. sororia, twin leopard bane. I need to remember to
check the axils of the lower leaves, next outing.
I did Asteraceae study photos on three plants, the Arnica
among them.
There are escaped domestics in this area of the park but
Arnica are native.
*
I saw an unexpected Lithophragma parviflora, small flowered
prairie star and recorded it.
*
I made another, not very successful effort to record
Microsteris gracilis, slender phlox.
*
There was a large Tragopogon dubius, yellow goat’s bear [or
salsify] beside the boulder on which I was sitting. I took the closed
flowerhead and hoped for the best. The disk florets seemed advanced. The ray
florets did not.
The patch of Euphorbia cyparissias was around the boulder in
front of me. It’s an escaped domestic. I see no sign of a homestead in the area
except a couple of domestic flowers.
There was an Erigeron compositus, cutleaf daisy with a
complete ‘blow-head’ near by.
A rather strange red ant was traveling across and down the
boulder in front of me.
I walked down to the Balsamorhiza sagittata, balsamroot
patch east of north pond and was surprised to find fresh blossoms. They must
have been stimulated by the recent rain.
I took a specimen of an older blossom and had some success
with it.
THE PHOTOS
Arnica sororia, twin leopard bane – Asteraceae
110-195
150 my best cutaway photo so far. Cypsela [achene but from
an inferior ovary] in the front row.
[[Speculation – help, if you can
An inferior ovary is enclosed by a hypanthium. So a cypsela
is enclosed in a hypanthium? A hypanthium is a ‘receptacle’ enclosing the base
of the carpel … the ovary. The ‘sepals’ in this case, bristles, are attached to
the top of the hypanthium.
The disk florets are ‘sitting on’ a receptacle. There’s
something wrong with this picture.]]
160 a disk floret
170 a ray floret. The base of the ray floret looks as fruit-like
as the base of the disk floret. Some source it says that the ray florets are
usually sterile. Maybe the fruit has no seeds?
195 cauline leaves
Lithophragma parviflora, small prairie star – Saxifragaceae
210-250
Microsteris gracilis, slender phlox - Polemoniaceae
305-320
320 A view of the yellow tube below the pink lobes pointed
out by Ben Legler in Burke
Tragopogon dubius, yellow goat’s beard or salsify – Asteraceae
410-450
430 The ray florets have not developed their lobes. It seems
strange that the stigma are advanced.
Euphorbia cyparissias, Cypress spurge – Euphorbiaceae
510-540
Erigeron compositus, cutleaf fleabane – Asteraceae
610-660
Red Ant
710-730
Balsamorhiza sagittata, balsamroot – Asteraceae
810-880
830 looks like three rows of bracts in the involucre
870 ray floret
I didn’t try to open the fruit to see if there were seeds. I
don’t think I could. Too small.
880 disk florets
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