Category Archives: Flowers

SPRING FLOWERS

April 12, 2014

Last Wednesday Dave delivered my new computer. It has been over three weeks since I let go of the old one. Most of that time I have spent trying to get over a heavy cough and cold, which meant that I was not getting out into nature the way I love to do. Sorry about the long gap between postings.

At the end of January (Jan 29) I reported finding a fungus (Puccinia monoica) that invaded a plant, Rock-cress (Boechera perennans), changed its growth pattern and made the leaves look like flowers. Yesterday Ed and I went to visit the infected plant to see how it was doing. Though it looks a little the worse for wear, you can see in the photograph that the growth pattern is still the same and the fungus is still turning the leaves on the tip of the plant yellow so that they look like flowers (on a plant that has pink and white flowers.) The other Rock-cress plants nearby have mostly finished blooming and have gone to seed. This fungus has been at work pretending to be a yellow flower for at least ten weeks.

The infected plant is projecting out from a steep bank

Some of the many dandelions in bloom

We drove up the mountain to Turkey Run. It is still very early in the season and there are not many plants in bloom. We did see a healthy crop of dandelion. Later we found the orange gooseberry in bloom (Ribes pinetorum). For several years I tried to photograph this plant, but was too late. Here it is, blooming in April. On the way down the mountain we found its cousin, Golden currant, (Ribes aureum) in full bloom.

Orange gooseberry flower. It begins red and turns white with age

The Golden currant flower

Orange gooseberry with flower, last year’s fruit (out of focus) and a penny for scaled

One of my favorite flowers on the mountain is the Green gentian or Deer’s ears (Swertia radiata). It produces a crop of very large floppy leaves each year for many years. In its final year, the leaf pattern is different as it sends up a flowering stalk which can be as high as 8 feet (as in this photograph). The stalk has hundreds if not thousands of pale green flowers. After it produces fruit, the plant dies. This means that it is monocarpic, meaning that it only flowers once in its life.

An eight foot tall blooming Green gentian

An individual Green Gentian flower

New Green gentian growth

Ed and I saw some Gentian plants with last year’s foliage all dried up and in the center, new growth. Within the next few weeks we will see if any of these will send up a flowering stalk. Last year there were very few that flowered, but lots of foliage.

Hillside with a number of Green gentian plants (we found 26 in the area)

We enjoyed seeing Arizona Valerian (Valeriana arizonica). This genus is known as a medicinal plant, acting as a sedative. These bloom early in the Spring where in some damp places high in the mountain they carpet the forest floor.

An Arizona Valerian near a rock

A cluster of valerian flowers with lavender tubes and white flowers.

This week end (April 12 and 13), I am participating in the Tucson Open Studio tour. Our home will be open from 11 am to 5 pm on Saturday and Sunday. Come on over. (9233 E Helen St.)

ENJOYING IRONWOOD FOREST

March 13, 2014

When I wrote my last blog I thought that the next big event for me was the Tucson Festival of Books. That will happen this coming week end. In the meanwhile, two other big events have intervened.

ONE
Jim Avramis sent an e-mail on Friday inviting me to be a co-leader of a hike the very next day. It turned out that I was free, and had even been thinking of going on the hike which had been advertised long ago. It was to Ironwood National Monument where I gave a talk last November 16.
About 60 people gathered in the parking lot at Marana Airport as Lahsha Brown welcomed us and gave us our marching orders. There were three hiking groups. Mine was led by Jim Avramis, and Gary Borax. I was there to share some knowledge of the plants of the region.
We car pooled to the Monument, ending up traveling along narrow lanes lined with thorny shrubs and trees scraping the sides of the vehicle “Desert pin-striping it” as one hiker said.

We parked on the flanks of the mountain range and made our way up the slope to the saddle between Ragged Top and Walcott peak. Ragged Top has a distinct jagged outline, and is home to a herd of big-horn sheep. It was lambing time for the sheep, so we were told to avoid Ragged Top, and circumnavigate Walcott peak. Eighteen of us made the three-mile journey, crossing washes, making our way up the slope to the saddle, and going around the mountain back to the cars. We noticed thousands of tiny wild-flower seedlings too small to recognize. Then we saw poppies, heliotrope, brittlebush, and other flowers. I met, for the first time, Chuparosa (Justicia Californica), a beautiful plant with red tubular flowers, also called Hummingbird bush and beloperone. It was a gorgeous day, and there was much to enjoy.
Getting back to our starting point at the airfield, I handed out my flower posters, apologizing for the fact that I did not have enough for all of the people in our party.

TWO
The other big event was a trip to Sedona with my wife, Louise, and granddaughter, Kayla. More about that next blog.

Jim giving us directions

Chuparosa

Making our way to Walcott saddle

Some of our group at the base of Walcott peak

STUDIES IN PINK AND WHITE

February 20, 2014

Thanks to our alert friend David Hollombe, we know that the mystery flower noted on January 31, was not a flower at all, but a discoloration created by the fungus Puccinia monoica. He suggested it might be on the plant: Boechera perennans. This week I confirmed his suggestion. The infected plant is in a hillside with a number of boechera growing near it, and though the upper leaves on the infected plant are very different, the lower ones match the other plants near by. Boechera, or as it used to be called, Arabis, is called Rock-cress, and is a perennial (which is what perenanns means). It can have pink and white flowers on the same flowering stalk as in the second picture.

Holding the top of the infected plant

This is what the top normally looks like

Some flowers are pink

On the same inflorescence, some are white

Later that day my wife and I saw another plant with both pink and white versions of its flowers, the tiny Slender phlox (Microsteris gracilis.) It blooms very early in the year, in this case February, and is only an inch or so high when it starts to bloom. This is a very sweet little flower.

Two of the Slender phlox plants, showing the pink and white versions

The pink close up

And the white

Today I was hiking with Ed and we saw many examples of a lomatium plant. I have known this plant for years, and so far my botany friends have been unable to identify it. The flowers are similar to Lomatium nevadense, but the foliage is different, and the plant grows much larger (up to a foot high compared to only a few inches for L. nevadense). With my close-up camera I was able to see what the individual flowers of this plant in the carrot family look like. My flower books do not list it. Wikipedia notes that there are 75 species of lomatiums in the world, and it has article on 51 of them. None of them seemed to match this plant. It seems that most of the plants in this genus have yellow flowers. These are white. None of the ones I saw had long thin leaves. Any suggestions?

Looking down at the mystery Lomatium on the trail

A flower cluster on the Lomatium

Looking more closely at the cluster

A close up of individual flowers in the cluster

The leaves of the mystery lomatium

I am excited about speaking to the Cochise chapter of the Arizona Native Plant Society in Sierra Vista tomorrow, and as one of thirteen speakers at the Botany Conference coming up this Saturday at the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum. Both talks will be about taking a closer look, but the species shown will be different (except for one mystery plant.)

FUNGUS FAKES FLOWERING

February 14, 2014

An alert individual (David Hollombe) has pointed out that the false flower we reported on January 31, was produced on a plant by a rust fungus called: Puccinia monoica. The fungus invades the plant and prevents it from flowering. Then it turns the upper leaves yellow, making them look like flower petals. For a moment this deceived us. Evidently it also deceives pollinators who land on it, get frustrated, and fly off, helping the fungus spread. The host plant is usually in the mustard family. Thank you, David.

Plant infected with rust fungus

Dave Larson and I went to Milagrosa Canyon (which I recently incorrectly called “Milagro” which is Spanish for “Miracle” instead of Milagrosa, Spanish for “Miraculous”). He wanted to see the honeycombs that Ed and I saw earlier. I had a different camera lens and was able to get a better picture including bees flying in and out.

The cliff with the hive (left of the saguaro). Note Dave’s white hat in the foreground

We followed the trail up and to the left, finding a number of new flower species in bloom, like . Arizona fiesta-flower (Pholistoma auritum), Anemone, Twist Flower, and lots more of the Red Justitia. We ended up at the base of a Rock climbing-wall. As we sat for our snack we couldn’t help noticing the marvelous echo, and even tested to see if burps would echo back at us (as Dave’s wife would say, “you boys!”). We saw ravens, swallows (or were they swifts?) and hummingbirds flying around. We were eventually joined by some rock climbers.

Arizona fiesta flower with its red, white and blue

The next day Ed and I walked a short distance up the Babat Do’ag. Trail, and found 29 species of wildflowers in bloom, including lots of Gordon’s bladder pod (Physaria gordonii). Noting the harsh weather conditions in other parts of the country we felt especially privileged to be in such miraculous country with warm sun and bright blue skies.

In Milagrosa Canyon looking back to Tucson

Note the remains of a saguaro left center, with its thin wooden skeleton tops curving to the right

Common fiddleneck (Amsinckia intermedia)

My fingers give an idea of scale

Gordon’s bladderpod (Physaria gordonii)

TWO BAD GRASSES

February 7, 2014

It was a cool, cloudy day, so Ed and I decided to stay in the valley for our weekly hike. Something drew us to explore Milagro Canyon. We found many flower species in bloom, some with only a few specimens, others out in full force, like the gorgeous Indigo Bush (Dalea pulchra) loaded with its wine colored flowers. The other was one that I have not seen very often, Arizona water-willow (Justicia candicans) also called Red justicia (which puzzles me since candicans means “white”.)

Arizona water-willow plant

The top of Arizona water-willow with lots of blooms

A close up of two flowers

The stream bed was choked with grasses, most of them invasive species, notably these two bad actors – Fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum) and Buffelgrass (Pennisetum ciliare). Not surprisingly since they are of the same genus, they have similar flowering stalks as shown in this picture. The leaves are very different. Fountain grass has mostly straight leaves that splay out like a fountain. Buffelgrass leaves are wider and more irregular in their growth pattern. Fountain grasses is the dominant species in this canyon and is larger than Buffelgrass.

On the left is Fountain Grass with straight leaves

On the right is Buffelgrass with irregular leaves

En route Ed began talking about Ragged rock flower (Crossosoma bigelovii), and very soon we spotted some up on the cliff above us. We wondered if we unconsciously noticed it, discussed it, and then spotted it or whether it was just a coincidence that we saw it almost immediately after discussing it. We love it especially for its beautiful scent. Speaking of scent, we were also delighted with the fragrance coming from some mistletoe.

Flat honeycombs

On our way up the rocky canyon, we looked up and saw something like stalactites hanging in a recess in the cliff. Our trusty binoculars revealed that these were honeycombs. Neither of us had ever seen the likes of it. We did not stay to look at it more closely, concerned that the hives might be the work of the infamous killer bees.

We got about as high in the canyon as we wanted to go, and stopped to rest. Sitting down for our break, Ed looked up into the gray sky and saw a glow where the sun was obscured by the clouds. We liked the way this glow was framed by the arms of a saguaro cactus far above us. This was about as much of the sun as we saw all day.

Ed looking up at the gray sky with fountain grass clumps

The sun just barely showing through a saguaro cactus

On the return to the car we saw five flower species that we had not noted on the outward journey, making a total of about twenty for the day. Not bad for early February.

CLOSE UP NATURE PICTURES

January 31, 2014

The last two days have taken me up into the mountains, a pleasant break from the freezing temperatures in Glenview, north of Chicago, where my wife and I spent last week end.
Ed and I walked in the Gordon Hirayabashi camp ground. As soon as we parked the car we noticed a plant that looked, from a distance, like a bladderpod, though we knew that it does not normally grow at this elevation. On closer look the “flowers” were actually leaves. Looking still closer we saw that these leaves at the tips of the branches were covered with yellow papillae. We have no idea what the plant is. From the woody stem, we decided it must be a perennial. We will enjoy checking on it from time to time to see how it develops.

The mystery plant, seemingly in flower

The mystery plant showing that these are leaves, not flowers

A close up of the plant showing the yellow papillae

We had almost given up on seeing any flowers on our return journey when we heard a loud buzzing coming from the top of some of the cottonwood trees. These were the male trees, with their golden catkins. Some of the trees still had leaves left over from last fall. All of them had leaf buds developing at the end of the twigs.
We stopped for a snack by a little waterfall. It was actually running, though very slowly. We have had precious little rain this winter. There we noticed that the Alligator juniper (Juniperus deppeana) was coming into flower. They are not true flowers, but thousands of little brown buds containing pollen. They are called pollen cones. I managed to get a close-up of one of them, and also of new fruit forming. It is red now but will turn blue as it ripens.

The Alligator Juniper pollen cones

New fruit on the Alligator Juniper

The next day Dave and I went to Bear Canyon and found that the great Arizona cypress trees (Cupressus arizonica) were also coming into flower. I managed to get a close up of the pollen cones, including some that evidently had finished releasing their pollen. Then for the first time Dave found what seems to be a seed cone (the female part of the plant.)

Arizona cypress pollen cone

We think this might be the female, seed cone of the Arizona Cypress

Dropping down into the canyon we came across a large dried up plant which we think was a Pokeberry (Phytolacca icosandra). It had lots of last year’s fruit on it. The ones on the tips of the branches were deep red. Lower down they were grey and white. I love the close-up pictures we were able to get.

Last year’s fruit on the Pokeberry

Lower down the stalk the old fruit turns grey

We also saw lots of willow in bloom, possibly Coyote willow (Salix exigua). It seemed much too early in the year, but the bees certainly knew that it was in flower. This is another dioecious plant. With my new close-up camera I was not only able to look more deeply at the male flowers, but for the first time, saw the actual flowers on the female shrubs. They are the tiny pale yellow endings to the green spikes.

The male flowers of the willow

The female flowers

A close-up showing the actual tiny flowers on the willow

Tomorrow (Feb. 1st) Owen and I have the opening of our Father/Son art show at Contreras Gallery in Tucson – 6 – 9 pm. All are welcome. The show goes until Feb. 22.

BUCKWHEATS

October 7, 2013

Many times I find nature overwhelming in its complexity and beauty. It is impossible to know everything about everything. Over time I have learned that it is enough to get to know some things about a few things in a fairly limited area. Which brings me to buckwheat. I first got interested in buckwheat when I did illustrations for the first edition of Charlie Kane’s “Herbal Medicine of the American Southwest”, including paintings of flat-top buckwheat (p. 98-100). Now, eight years later, I decided to take a closer look at the buckwheat flowers.

With my new camera and lens I can zoom in and see flowers at a much closer range than before, and discover things I have not yet noticed.

The buckwheat family is called Polygonaceae, from the Greek word polygon = knee, referring to the fact that many in this genus have thickened joints on their stems.

The genus is eriogonum, from two Greek words: erion=hairy or woolly, and gonu=joint, since some species in this genus have hairy joints.

How many Eriogonum species are there?
240 – in the world (Wikipedia)
200 – in the United States ( Kane)
100 – in Southern California, Arizona and New Mexico (Ricketts)
50 – in Arizona (Epple)
5 – in the Santa Catalina mountains above 4000′ (Verrier and Tedford)

Of these five, let me show you two, one visible and the other “invisible”.

The visible one is Flat-topped buckwheat or eriogonum fasciculatum. The botanical name refers to the fact that the leaves are in fascicles, or bundles where they attach to the stem.

Here we see a road cut in the Catalina Mountains with eriogonum fasciculatum in fairly large clumps all along the slope.

These large masses look almost black in the late fall and winter. Then, in the early spring, they turn a beautiful green and soon are topped with a bouquet of pale pink flowers. After a while, as the flowers fade, the top turns a pleasant rust color.

Here we see a group of plants, with just a few flowers left.

Here is a single plant showing some fresh flowers, and some that have turned brown.

Here is a plant with mostly new flowers.

A single branch with a cluster on the top consisting of many flowers packed tightly together.

Here is the cluster close up. Note that some of the flowers have aged and turned reddish brown.

This is a single flat-topped buckwheat flower.

The second species is one of the “invisible” buckwheats, – Sorrel eriogonum, eriogonum polycladon (meaning having many branches).

The plants are about two feet tall. You can see the way they branch. The pinkish-white parts at the end of the stems are the flowers. There are fields full of these plants between 4000′ and 5000′. Often I have walked by them and wondered if they were in bloom or not, since the flowers are so small. The stems are grey. The flower buds are partly red and the flowers mostly white. From a distance these plants give a beautiful pink glow to the landscape.

This is a close-up of a group of buds, part of a flower and some fading flowers.

This is a single flower, very small, nearly invisible yet quite beautiful.

THE CORAL BEAN

October 5, 2013

When I was first learning the flowers of the Catalina Mountains, I took a particular interest in the coral bean (Erythrina flabelliformis), with its beautiful red tubular flowers. I knew it grew in Molino Basin, about 4500 feet in elevation, and that the flowers usually came out before the leaves. This made the flowers easier for the pollinators to spot, but somehow I found it difficult to find them. That first year of looking, by the time I found the plants they had pretty well finished blooming, and I determined to learn where they were so that I could find them more quickly the following year.

That fall I drove up into Molino Basin and dotted all over the hillsides were the bright yellow leaves of the coral bean. They were very easy to spot, as you can see in this photograph. I made a mental note of a number of them, and when I returned the following June found them easily.

Here is a close up of one, with a desert spoon shrub the other side of the rock.

This picture shows the plant with flowers as well as leaves. This is unusual, since the flowers usually come before the first leaf.

I learned that this plant is not really a shrub. South of us, in Mexico, it grows into a substantial tree. But here the winters are too cold, so they never grow much above 6 feet in height. One day while exploring the stream bed in Molino Basin, I came across this coral bean plant with the roots exposed by erosion. The roots were as thick as my arm. Clearly this root system could support a fairly large tree.

In 2006 my wife and I spent three months living in Australia, mostly suburban Sydney, and one day walking in the neighborhood I came across a thirty-foot erythrina tree in full and glorious bloom. It is the same genus but not the same species as the one in Arizona.

In addition to the gorgeous red flowers, the plant produces beautifully colored seeds, varying from brown to deep red, and separated by little white cus hions, as you can see in the final photograph..

FALL FLOWERS IN MOLINO BASIN

October 1, 2013

Some years ago I hiked Molino Basin in the Catalina Mountains once a week so I got to know it very well. The cover of the Mountain Wildflower book shows a picture of the basin seen from a saddle on the east side. Here is a similar view.

There are about 600 flowering species in the Catalina Mountains and over half of them are in this one area. By hiking it on a regular basis for over a year I got to appreciate the great variety of plants that grow here. My particular goal today was to find the rare and beautiful Rivina humilis (rouge plant), which I saw in bud a few weeks ago.

Today I did find the plant. As far as I could see it was finished flowering but it was buried so deep in a thicket that I could not really tell. I was not able to get a close up picture, but at least I know it is still there, though not in great numbers. As you can see from the list below there were almost 60 species in bloom on my two-mile walk, so I was well rewarded for my efforts.

Right at the parking lot there is a climbing milkweed. The flowers come in bunches and I decided to photograph just one on its own.

In the stream bed I found a number of the Mock Pennyroyal plants. This is similar to a plant of the same name that grows along the mountain trails at the top of the mountain, but has interesting differences.

I am sure I passed by many flowers too small to notice. The list includes some guesses. I did not take the time to do a careful inspection to determine the exact species, so there may be some errors in the list. At least it gives an idea of the wide variety of plants still blooming as we approach the fall.

PLANTS I SAW IN BLOOM (SOME IN BUD) TODAY
Acacia angustissima          White –Ball Acacia
Amaranthus fimbriatus    Careless weed
Amaranthus palmeri       Careless weed
Amauriopsis (Bahia) dissecta    Ragleaf Bahia
Ambrosia confertiflora     Slimleaf Bursage – lots of it
Anisacanthus thurberi       Desert Honeysuckle – one plant
Artemisia dracunculus       False Tarragon
Artemisia ludoviciana     Wormwood – lots of it
Asclepias linaria         Pine-leaf Milkweed – one plant
Baccharis sarothroides      Desert Broom – in bud
Brickellia californica       California Brickellia
Brickellia rusbyi       Brickellia
Brickellia venosa       Brickellia
Calliandra eriophylla         Fairy Duster – one plant
Carminatia tenuiflora        Plume Weed
Datura wrightii         Sacred Datura
Dieteria asteroides        Narrow-leaf Aster – lots of it
Epilobium canum ssp. latifolium   Hummingbird Trumpet
Erigeron divergens     Spreading Fleabane
Eriogonum polycladon      Sorrel Eriogonum
Eriogonum wrightii           Wright’s Buckwheat
Eriogonum fasciculatum   Flat-topped Buckwheat
Euphorbia pediculifera Spurge
Funastrum (Sarcostemma) cynanchoides var. hartwegii Climbing Milkweed (picture above)
Glandularia gooddingii       Goodding Verbena
Gomphrena sonorae         Globe Amaranth – maybe just fruit
Gossypium thurberi         Desert Cotton
Gymnosperma glutinosum       Gumhead – lots of it
Hedeoma dentata      Mock Pennyroyal (picture above)
Heliomeris longifolia var. annua       Annual Goldeneye
Heterotheca subaxillaris      Camphorweed
Hymenothrix wrightii         Wright Beeflower
Ipomoea costellata         Crest-rib Morning Glory
Ipomoea barbatisepala     Morning Glory (blue)
Ipomoea cristulata (coccinea)       Scarlet Creeper
Ipomoea hederacea       Ivy-leaf Morning Glory
Mentzelia isolata         Isolated Blazing-Star
Oenothera caespitosa       Tufted Evening- Primrose – one plant
Phaseolus acutifolius var. tenuifolius   Tepary Bean
Porophyllum ruderale var. macrocephalum    Poreleaf
Pseudognaphalium canescens Wright’s cudweed
Rivina humilis       Pigeon Berry, Rouge Plant – in fruit
Salsola tragus        Russian Thistle
Sanvitalia abertii         Abert’s Dome
Sphaeralcea ambigua var. rosacea     Desert Mallow
Sphaeralcea fendleri var. venusta   Fendler Mallow
Sphaeralcea laxa       Caliche Globe Mallow
Stachys coccinea         Texas Betony – one plant
Stephanomeria pauciflora      Wire Lettuce
Viguiera dentata var. lancifolia     Lance-leaf Goldeneye
Xanthisma gracile      Slender Goldenweed – lots and lots of it

THIRD TIME LUCKY FOLLOW UP

September 20, 2013

About a week ago, I wrote about finding three mystery plants on the top of Mt. Lemmon, and asked for help. My call was answered by my botanical adviser, Joan. Here is what she suggests:

1 – The phlox-like plant is probably Showy baby’s breath, Gypsophila elegans, a plant not listed as growing in Arizona. There is quite a little collection of these at the top of the Aspen trail.

2 – The Amaranth is likely careless weed, amaranthus palmeri. Amaranth seeds are an important food source. This plant is not new to the mountain. The surprising thing is to find it blooming at 9000 feet. Its normal range is 3100′-4800′.

3 – And as for the cosmos, I went back and took a picture of the native cosmos parviflora, against the new one, to give some idea of the relative appearance, size and color. This time I found two more plants near the first one we saw.

And then another mystery was solved. Two years ago, in this same area, we found Livermore stickseed, in the Borage family. Its botanical name is hackelia pinetorum, a shrubby plant with tiny blue flowers. Several times this summer I have gone looking for the plant. It was no longer growing in the area where I originally saw it in 2011. This week we walked a little farther and Ed spotted it along the side of the trail. There was just one plant. As you can see the flowers are scarcely visible.

This is one of the flowers greatly enlarged. It is a pretty little blue flower with a yellow and orange center.

Frank S. Rose

Flowers and more