Recognize the Chelonaceae

Classification is a system of coding and organizing objects, be they books, species or whatever. In the library stacks, we expect to find books with largely corresponding subject matter shelved together. Similarly, in a local, regional or continental flora, we expect to find similar plants 'shelved' together. Placement of Penstemon and allied genera in the Plantaginaceae is the funcitonal equivalent of placing floras in with the cookbooks: it does not serve direct discovery.

Users of floras use floras because they want to know the name of a plant. Although polyphylletic, the "Scrophs" served this objective. Find a tubular corolla, often brightly colored, often 2-lipped, capsular fruit plant and fish about in the key to Scrophs...

Taxonomy and classification are often incorrectly equated, to do so is to conflate. Taxonomy is a system of classification, A taxonomic system is a particular type classification: a classification based on phyllogenetic relatedness is one system. An alternative 'system' often used in flora guidebooks is flower color.

Placement of Penstemon, Collinsia, Kecklilla, Tonella (California plants) and others (Chelone, Chinophila, Russelia,
Tetranema etc) in the Plantaginaceae, along with dozens upon dozens of equally diverse tribes and genera creates a discordant grouping. An expanded Plantaginaceae is a discordant grouping. Recognizing Plantaginaceae becomes difficult. What key feature does one use to equate these plants? In my opinion, none!

The point: in a regional flora, if one is such dire need to use a phyllogenetic system, why be bashful? After all, we no longer grumble about splitting up artificial, aggregate genera (vis Stipa into many genera) although sometimes revert to these aggregates.

Penstemon is a member of the Chelonaceae Martinov, containing Chelone, Chinophila, Collinsia, Keckiella, Pensteomon, Russelia, Tetranema, Tonella and Uroskinnera. All are New World, bird or bee pollinated, large showy flowered (or for Collinsia, unusual in their "pseudo-papillanceous flowers). Placement of Brookea auriculata of Asia is the only outlier in that genus should it belong here.

The problem with an expanded Plantaginaceae is that is a library where no two books shelved next to one another share much information. Make families that are closely related lineages consisting of groupings of genera and their radiant species. The expanded Plantaginaceae is not a natural family.

California botanists, recognize the Chelonaceae.

Brodiaea matsonii in cultivation

Brodiaea matsonii has been maintained in cultivation since 1997. I was originally given a single one-gallon pot by Gary Matson which contained about 30 or so corms with leaves present. In growing this plant, its tendency to propagate vegetative became quickly apparent. From the original lot of corms, by the onset of the first summer in cultivation, many young corms had begun to form from offests. Vegetative reproduction is not uncommon in many native California liliaceous endemics: several taxa of Brodiaea do this, others do not.

The offset corms arise at the ends of short (10 cm or so) threadlike structures (rhizomes?), which terminate in a new small corm, which then puts up a leaf. A second season of growth, and this corm is sufficiently large to itself produce more offsets. Larger corms, about 3 yr, flower.

In the space of three or so years, the original pot was packed, and so it was divided when the corms became dormant in late summer. Replanted, that original pot became several one-gallon pots. In 2007, one of these was referred to Dr Robert Preston, a botanist familiar with the taxonomy of Brodiaea, whom has recently described California’s newest, and perhaps most-narrow endemics.

In cultivation in Aptos, Brodiaea matsonii flowers readily in cultivation in pots. The plants have been maintained just as they were given to me: one gallon plastic pots, about 2/3rds full with potting soil mixed with pea gravel.

More on Brodiaea matsonii soon...

Breeding system Camissonia sierrae ssp. alticola

 

The first flowers of Camissonia sierrae ssp. alticola have appeared on 20 April 2011, 157 days after sowing. By contrast to the known breeding system of C. benitensis, which is matinally selling, C. sierrae alticola is positioned more toward the outcrossing end of the spectrum. On the night before opening, anthers of either C. benitensis and C. lacustris (blogged on xxx) are deployed with the filaments arching toward the stigma and pollen has been liberated. In C. sierrae alticola (grown from seed collected at Hetch Hetchy, in 2010) the anthers are not forced against the stigma, the anthers are do not open before the petals unfold, hence pollen is not deposited on the stigma at anthesis.

 

If we take the matinally selfing behavior of C. benitensis equal to that of a rapscallion, then C. sierrae alticola is more     sang-froid.

 

 

 

Matinal selfing in Camissonia lacustris

Selfing in Camissonia benitensis (Taylor 1990) was found to be direct and occurred before the flower bud opening. Here, I report the same similar matinal selfing in Camissonia lacustris, based on cultivated material derived from JEPS109727 collected at Wawona, Yosemite National Park.

Plants were sown out-of-doors in Aptos, CA on October 1^st 2010. On March 30, 2011 the first flowers began to open. The photograph is of an unopened bud taken in early am, before opening. At this stage, the night before opening, the anthers are adherent to the spherical stigma, with abundant pollen. Under magnification, pollen tubes were observed under high magnification.

Spot patterns in Yellow Mimuli

Mimulus, the "Monkey Flowers", with about 100 or so species, is nearly worldwide in distribution, with a concentration of narrow endemics in California, particularly in the central Sierra Nevada, where I work, is worthy of more genetic study: in this post, I pose the question, "why flowers with nothing but large spots only ".

The basis for the question is based on my inspection of the large array of yellow mimulus photos posted on the web (Calphotos, Flickr). In most of the species, combinatorial of spots occur on the corolla: many have 3 large spots on each of the lower corolla lobes, along with an array of smaller spots near the throat. In some species, individuals are spotless (i.e. M. primuloides, M. tilingii, M. floribundus and M. guttatus, of which the three photos show spotless, small spots only, and large and small spots conditions). In other species, some individuals have only small spots, and lack the 3 large spots.

NEVER, in all of the photos I inspected, did I find an individual with only 3 large spots whilst the smaller spots were absent. The genetics of spot inheritance and assortment are worthy of study; are large spots linked in some complex fashion such that when any spot genes are expressed, 3 large spots are mandatory?

Carex divulsa – the un-Berkeley sedge, invasive in California

Once upon a time, California native plant horticultural enthusiasts offered Berkeley sedge (Carex tumulicola Mackenzie, Section Phaestoglochin Dumortier) in the California trade. Sedges, being a perhaps the most speciose natural genus of angiosperms (perhaps 2000 species), are confused, is confusing, and confuse. Whence, a transposition occurred: Carex divulsa Stokes (also of Sect. Phaestoglochin), but native to Eurasia, was somehow conflated in the horticultural trade with C. tumulocola. The result: Carex divulsa is now sold widely: in California easily obtained, used frequently in "native" or "xeric" or "drought resistant" landscape plantings.

Carex divulsa, at least in mesic, coastal central California, is thus established. The photograph is of a seeding, one of many, that volunteered on the periphery of a C. divulsa purchased at a generic-grade garden center of a major hardware retailer (names withheld to protect the innocent).

Carex divulsa is neither xeric nor native. Its ecological preference in its native range is as a moderate to obligate mesophyte or subhydrophyte.

Carex divulsa will be spreading in Californa. One only has to visit the planting beds in the vicinity of the UC Santa Cruz Science Library to witness this: these plants are now, perhaps 8 yr after coming out of a 1-gallon can, clumps to 2 feet diameter and spreading babies about with abject rapaciousness.

A seed dispersal date for Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens)

Seed maturation and dispersal data for conifers is often anecdotal, as a quick perusal of "Silvics of North America" (Burns & Honkala 1990) indicates. For Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), Olson et al. (1990) state "Redwood cones are terminal and are 13 to 29 mm (0.5 to 1.1 in) long. They mature in autumn of the first year after flowering and are open from early September until late December. Although cones persist for several months, they open and shed seeds soon after ripening."

In the Santa Cruz Mountains yesterday, Feb 1 2010, seed dispersal occurred after a minor windstorm overnight. Seed density falling in a ca. 1 acre opening in otherwise moderately dense S. sempirvirens canopy was on the order of 250 seeds per sq. meter (the photo is the density on a 1 ft square tile)

Although this report yet another anecdote, this date extends the reported date by about a month, and moreover, suggests to me that dispersal is both a function of maturation sequencing and more strongly, environmental factors (specifically wind).

Literature
Burns, Russell M., and Barbara H. Honkala, tech. coords. 1990. Silvics of North America: 1. Conifers; 2. Hardwoods. Agriculture Handbook 654. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Washington, DC. vol.2, 877 p.

David F. Olson, Jr., Douglass F. Roy, and Gerald A. Walters. Sequoia sempervirens, in Burns & Honkala 1990