Slatsz Wildflower Walks 2013 #1: May 28, 2013 - Agoseris glauca, pale agoseris

In the park about an hour. Light rain. 94 images. 31 keepers.

I was short of sleep and it was threatening rain later, and rain is predicted for a few days to come, and I was all hot to get after photo information about some problems with Apiaceae and the Lomatium.

And I wanted to see if I had missed the blossoming of the poison ivy. I hadn’t. It doesn’t look changed … from a safe distance.

I had this notion that I would solve my problems with the Lomatium by dissection … until I saw how very small the florets were. Even now I wonder if everything I saw in this area of the park, the extreme east end, was stunted. It has been a dry spring. Perhaps we are getting the ‘June rains’ the winter wheat people depend on.

For the moment I wrote it off as being confused by working with blossoms blown up big in the computer. I will continue to watch for more robust examples of Lomatium triternatum. The Lomatium macrocarpum have gone to seed but have not, as yet, dispersed their seeds. Lomatium gormanii are, of course, long gone.

Weather.com predicted 6 dry hours. Wrong. The sprinkling was sometimes wetting.

I checked the Arnica sororia patch hoping for a fresh blossom. There were none.

I walked on down toward north pond to the area where I have seen Agoseris glauca, pale Agoseris. I saw one that was well over the hill but noticed another, out of the corner of my eye that was in good condition.

I dislike taking specimens of plants that are somewhat rare in the park but it was getting wetter by the minute and it is a long plant that is difficult to photograph in situ.

I checked Burke’s photos of A. glauca. The blossoms were right but the leaves were wrong. When all else fails, read the directions. The Burke text has: Leaves “… all basal, linear to broadly oblanceolate …”. Burke photo leaves are oblanceolate, mine are linear. So. Close enough.

I had taken photos of a couple Tragopogon dubius, yellow goat’s beard down by the poison ivy. They were in bloom everywhere I went. I also took a specimen.

The photos of the plants were unusable but they looked a little different than the photos of the specimen I took. When I read the textual material in Burke I wondered if they were a different species, Tragopogon pratensis. They have a couple of common names listed, Meadow salsify and ‘Jack go to bed at noon’.

Something to pay attention to in future, T. dubius peduncle enlarged under the head. T. pratensis peduncle not enlarged under the head.

Put another way [from observing photos in Burke] the stem is almost uniform to the base of the inflorescence in T. pratensis. In T. dubius the stem swells to fit the base of the inflorescence.

I wanted better photos of the leaves of Potentilla arguta, tall cinquefoil. I saw a patch of cinquefoil and walked over to get my photos. Wrong leaves. Potentilla gracilis, graceful cinquefoil. Very nice leaves but the wrong leaves.

Burke has the common name as ‘slender cinquefoil’ but ‘graceful cinquefoil’ is so much nicer.

Another problem with using photos for identification. The leaves in their photos were not very close to ‘our’ P. gracilis. But the text came to my rescue again. Leaves ‘… toothed to deeply dissected … .’ Leaves in Burke photos were toothed, ours are deeply dissected.

I noticed a scraggly Erodium cicutarium, stork’s bill and took it.

I tried to park in the open facing north so I could use the back of the car for a photo-table but the sprinkling rain became wetting.

There was a parking place overhung with box elder. I parked there, facing north but, of course, the light was very weak.

My shutter speeds were very, very slow but I got some usable images by bracing my wrists solidly. I kept some images that were not very good just because.

I’m attempting a new device for dealing with photos that I must reduce in size because the resolution is low. I fill out the frame with black so I have better control of the fit.

The ‘lobe’ on ray-flowers that looks like a ‘petal’ is called ‘a ligule’. Some Asteraceae family flowers do not have disk flowers they have only ray flowers. Those plants are said to be ‘ligulate’. Both of the Asteraceae family plants this day, Tragopogon dubius and Agoseris glauca, were ligulate. They have only ray flowers. Dandelion is also ligulate.

THE PHOTOS

Bee

110

I forgot about the bee. I stopped for a cheap taco and a root-beer. It was on the hood of my car when I came out. I thought it was dead but when I closed in for a vertical shot it flew away.

Tragopogon dubius, yellow goat’s beard – Asteraceae

210-260

Ligulate. All ray flowers.

The style rising above the anther column certainly seems to be coated with pollen in these photos.

240

Looks like some bug eggs on a ligule.

250

An involucre bract attached to a ray flower.

The flower on the right shows the distinctive arced stigma.

Agoseris glauca, pale Agoseris – Asteraceae family

310-395

A ligulate blossom. All ray flowers.

Ligulate flowers are said to have five ‘distal’ teeth [5 teeth at the far end of the ligule]. Asteraceae family plants with both ray flowers and disk flowers have ray flowers with only 3 distal teeth. Seem like an unimportant distinction but it’s interesting nevertheless.

320 I darkened the color to bring up detail.

370 The anther tube is yellow, here, not brown as in Balsamorhiza sagittata, balsamroot. It looks like there is a slight flare above the smooth anther column. I assume the knobby looking stuff above the flare is pollen. Notice the spreading stigma at the top of the style.

The style column, pushing up through the anther column is said to collect pollen and expose it for delivery to insects. The stigma stays closed, locked together [like praying palms] while passing up the anther column and rises, before it opens, far enough above the anther column to get pollen from insects and not from the anther column.

Flare/flair is … curious.

380-390

Ray flowers, now. The ligule will wither and fall away. The bristles [the pappus] will help the wind carry the fruit away.

The fruit is ‘an achene’.

Potentilla gracilis, graceful cinquefoil – Rosaceae family

410-480

470 Rosaceae in Drumheller Springs Park are mostly shrubs. There are two herbs. [Counting the 2 or 3 cinquefoil as one herb.]

Rosaceae have an inferior ovary. It is very distinctive on the shrubs.

I pulled away the buds to show it, here and I don’t see a sign of it. I suppose more dissection is required.

Erodium cicutarium, stork’s bill – Geraniaceae family

510-530

The geranium family.

This little darling is fun to photograph. These photos don’t do it justice. E. cicutarium will be around for a long time. I’ll get photos in better light.

Notice the stork’s bill. That is the fruit. It will split open, perhaps explosively.

The stork’s bill structure seems to be at least frequent in geranium family plants.