My name is Jennifer Leaf, and I am an addict. Try as I might, I just cannot control my penchant for....for plants...especially plants that bear fruit...especially weird, uncommon, or hard to find fruit. Day after day, I am confronted on a daily basis with temptations I cannot ignore. Like those acorns under the oak tree in the park. Or the winged seeds of Japanese maples. Today, I succumbed again. This time, I really went over the top. I bought 4 kinds of apples I didn't have seeds for, and a bunch of persimmons. I even justified by latter because they were on sale. And of course, I couldn't stop with eating the apples....I saved each and every viable seed from the Pippins (the viability rate on these was alarmingly low, only 3-4 seeds per apple!) and planted them. The only reason I haven't planted the others is that I feel nauseous and so haven't eaten them yet. Also, I have two Hachiya persimmon seeds that I am hoarding under my laptop, and two different kinds of stone pine (monophylla and edulis) in the bottom drawer of the fridge. And the worst part is, I'm never done looking. I can't stop looking for new kinds of apples, different fruits that might have seeds. Because then, I can plant them.
LOL....
Showing posts with label botany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label botany. Show all posts
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
We went to the John A. Finch Aboretum. Manito Park (both places are in Spokane) is also nice, but they are two entirely different places, but I prefer the former....because it has the Stewartia (and many other really cool trees). I collected all sorts of seeds but now it seems that I have lost most of them. A Concolor Fir, Bird's Nest Spruce, and I think a Picea orientalis. The apple trees (crab apples) were in full bloom, but to be honest, I wasn't half as taken with them as I was with the conifers and of course, the Stewartia.
Next, the Lomatium Dilemna. Now that a month or two has gone by, I returned to the site where I collected the plant that I thought was Lomatium gormanii. It took some careful searching, but I found the same clump I'd picked from. I was in luck- there was a seedhead. After careful consideration, I have decided that it is not Lomatium gormanii, it is Lomatium geyeri, but it is still a close call. My reasons for changing my mind on this are that: geyeri is a taller plant, up to twice the height of gormanii. When I first saw this plant, it was in flower, and the height was consistent with gormanii. Now that the seedhead has matured, the scape has grown to 20 cm although it was about ten in flower. Similarly, the shape of the umbel altered considerably between flowering and fruiting...I would not have expected this, but now that I think about it, dill does that too, IIRC. Lastly, the seeds are not exactly like gormanii, but they are very much like geyeri. By the way....another thing I found that couldn't be detected for certain earlier: it has a carpophore! Therefore, it definitely is not Orogenia linearifolia. So, I was wrong, but I was right.
I have been really busy taking care of business, cleaning house and getting the garden in before the summer semester starts. There has been absolutely no time for art or even to read a new book...well, that isn't quite true. I read The Nanny Diaries, but this was light, easy reading. I had intended to read a classic like Lolita, Anna Karenina, or The Last of the Mohicans. Perhaps I should borrow audio books...but I like the physical act of reading sooo....
What I've been listening to: "Hey there Delilah", a song that resonates with me strongly.
Next, the Lomatium Dilemna. Now that a month or two has gone by, I returned to the site where I collected the plant that I thought was Lomatium gormanii. It took some careful searching, but I found the same clump I'd picked from. I was in luck- there was a seedhead. After careful consideration, I have decided that it is not Lomatium gormanii, it is Lomatium geyeri, but it is still a close call. My reasons for changing my mind on this are that: geyeri is a taller plant, up to twice the height of gormanii. When I first saw this plant, it was in flower, and the height was consistent with gormanii. Now that the seedhead has matured, the scape has grown to 20 cm although it was about ten in flower. Similarly, the shape of the umbel altered considerably between flowering and fruiting...I would not have expected this, but now that I think about it, dill does that too, IIRC. Lastly, the seeds are not exactly like gormanii, but they are very much like geyeri. By the way....another thing I found that couldn't be detected for certain earlier: it has a carpophore! Therefore, it definitely is not Orogenia linearifolia. So, I was wrong, but I was right.
I have been really busy taking care of business, cleaning house and getting the garden in before the summer semester starts. There has been absolutely no time for art or even to read a new book...well, that isn't quite true. I read The Nanny Diaries, but this was light, easy reading. I had intended to read a classic like Lolita, Anna Karenina, or The Last of the Mohicans. Perhaps I should borrow audio books...but I like the physical act of reading sooo....
What I've been listening to: "Hey there Delilah", a song that resonates with me strongly.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
A Floral Dilemna:
For my systematic botany class, I've been collecting and pressing plants for a herbarium. Of course, they also have to be correctly identified via keying them out with a dichotomous key. Many of the specimens are easy to nail down right away...and the flora is used primarily to confirm the identity of the plant. For others, it can be exceptionally difficult unless you have as much information about the plant as possible, such as roots, seeds, flowers, leaves, habitat and visual access (dissecting scope) to minute structures such as the filaments of the stamens, or the placentation of ovaries that you can hardly see to begin with (let alone how the ovules within them are attached). You don't really notice it much until you try to do this, but it isn't terribly common to be able to see flowers and seeds development on a single species in a single day, especially wildflowers. Their whole program is one of blooming, setting and ripening the seed all as quickly as it can for optimum survival of the next generation of plants. That's the introduction to my problem. Here's the problem:
This plant is Lomatium gormanii
© Gerald D. Carr
And here is a picture of another plant, also in the apiaceae family, Orogenia linearifolia:
For my systematic botany class, I've been collecting and pressing plants for a herbarium. Of course, they also have to be correctly identified via keying them out with a dichotomous key. Many of the specimens are easy to nail down right away...and the flora is used primarily to confirm the identity of the plant. For others, it can be exceptionally difficult unless you have as much information about the plant as possible, such as roots, seeds, flowers, leaves, habitat and visual access (dissecting scope) to minute structures such as the filaments of the stamens, or the placentation of ovaries that you can hardly see to begin with (let alone how the ovules within them are attached). You don't really notice it much until you try to do this, but it isn't terribly common to be able to see flowers and seeds development on a single species in a single day, especially wildflowers. Their whole program is one of blooming, setting and ripening the seed all as quickly as it can for optimum survival of the next generation of plants. That's the introduction to my problem. Here's the problem:
This plant is Lomatium gormanii
© Gerald D. Carr
And here is a picture of another plant, also in the apiaceae family, Orogenia linearifolia:
They look a lot alike, don't they? I have a plant that I'm pretty certain is Lomatium gormanii, but someone who knows more about plants than I do says it's Orogenia. He only glanced at my specimen, and it was pressed and dried, and he didn't see where it was growing, *and* these two are almost identical to the casual observer as far as I can tell, so I don't know how he can say that, unless he is seeing soemthing that I have overlooked in the flora and plant guides I've consulted, such as a dramatic size difference between the two. The roots are almost the same, the flowers are the same color, leaves very similar, even the minute detail of the flowers are very much alike.
Part of why I think it's Lomatium gormanii is that the Orogenia grows in damp soil, whereas L.gormanii grows on dry rocky slopes and rocks, which is exactly where I found it. That site will be dry as a bone within a month or so. Also, Orogenia apparently was collected for food and makes sizable roots, but this plant has only a small sub-globose tuber, about the size of a little pearl onion. And Orogenia linearifolia typically grows in large groups which flower all at once, and the umbels are only 1/4" across, whereas this plant has umbels which are slightly larger and there were only a few plants on the site, hardly the blanket of blooms described of the other species.
Lastly, I should mention that neither of the plants are present in most field guides for the area, either online or in text. Orogenia linearifolia is apparently a species of concern in Montana, and sightings of the Lomatium gormanii aren't terribly common either in this area, from the information I've found so far. So either way, It would seem I've found an interesting plant. I just wish I knew what it was. Of course, it doesn't help matters at all that the lomatiums exhibit quite a bit of morphological variation.