Besseya Rubra coral drops

9/17/2014 8:02 AM

Besseya rubra, red coral drops, red kittentail

Native

Perennial

There is a small patch of B. rubra near the middle of the park … Drumheller Springs Park. Grant Cummings showed it to me. That’s all of the B. rubra I knew about for a long time. Those plants are quite small. I found small patch near the east end of the park, near the east-west line of boulders, that is rather tall. I supposed it was … can’t think of the term for it. A garden variety that horticulturists had dinked with. But I see no B. rubra plants for sale in garden-store websites. I saw no interest in the plant from gardeners. I saw one comment that the plant was too tall for rock gardens so maybe the short plants in the park are stunted … or a variety.

The patch of B. rubra near the center of the park are less than 6 inches tall.

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This is the patch near the east end of the park. As I recall they are a lot taller, maybe over a foot.

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This is a single B. rubra from the tall patch.

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This is a single, very young plant from the patch in mid-park

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Hortipedia; The GardenInfoPortal

http://en.hortipedia.com/wiki/Besseya_rubra

“Besseya rubra was already described and the name validly published by William Jackson Hooker based on a prior description by David Douglas. It was Per Axel Rydberg, however, who reclassified it into todays valid botanical systematics in 1903.”

Flowers

It is very difficult to make photo-sense of these flowers.

Hortipedia says it has racemes of tubular flowers. Its flowers are not tubular. The inflorescence is a raceme. Terminal buds become lateral flowers as the plant develops.

Buds are developing at the top of the plant.

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Flowers developing low in the raceme.

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This is the taller B. rubra

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Burke says the inflorescence is a spike but spikes are racemes. [Some sources say thery are racemes. Wikipedia says a spike is similar to a raceme but the flowers are sessile, they have no flower stalks. My photos show flower stalks where the inflorescence is open.]

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Most sources say that there are no petals or the petals are vestigial … much reduced. They say there are 4 sepals. Some sources say the sepals are unequal. I don’t see unequal sepals in my photographs. The sources don’t use the term calyx.

These ‘flowers’ are late, of course, the fruit is formed. If there had been petals they would have fallen away or at least dried up.

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The sources that have anything at all to say about the plant mention the red filaments of the stamen.

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This photo of the larger B. rubra has styles pinker than the filaments with yellow anthers. The styles are capitate [head like]. The styles look almost like ‘straight pins’. They are closer to the top of the plant, the right side of the photo. The open anthers covered with yellow pollen are nearer the left side of the photo. The pink structures in the middle of the photo seem to be developing anthers. The pods have not opened.

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The red pods look too large relative to the pollen covered anthers but that’s what they seem to be.

I need to do more of this photography next year. I should get a flower with at least two stamen.

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And this photo seems to have a style with a darker red than the filaments.

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Some sources say B. rubra flowers have two stamen.

It looks like there is a ‘headless’ style or filament sticking out of the sepals.

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My photos seem to show male and female flowers, female flowers developing at the top of the inflorescence, therefore, developing later and male flowers below.

The flowers are more clearly segregated on the larger B. rubra.

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There are female flowers, only, at the top of the inflorescence of the smaller B. rubra.

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But some female flowers show lower in the inflorescence.

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Northern Rockies Natural History Guide says the flowers are ‘perfect’ … both sexes present in each flower. I cannot observe that in these photos. Dissection next year should determine if the flowers have both reproductive organs.

The ovary is superior.

Leaves

The plant is ‘hairy’ all over when young.

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But has smooth leaves as an older plant.

You can kind of see the leaves at the base of this clump.

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I don’t have good leaf photos of the smaller B. rubra.

The larger B. rubra has basal leaves with short hair

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and hairy cauline leaves.

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Paul Slichter says the cauline leaves are sessile [have no stems]. My photos show short stems. [I am assuming that sessile leaves would be ‘clasping’, absolutely stemless.]

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The margin [edge] of the leaves have rounded teeth.

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B. rubra develops basal leaves in the fall. The leaves become reddish in winter. It develops more leaves in spring.

There are both basal leaves and cauline leaves [leaves on the stem].

My photos show very leaf-like bracts associated with the flowers.

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They are rather dense within the inflorescence.

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Fruit

The fruit is a capsule. [Wikipedia says a capsule is composed of 2 or more carpels. Capsules are usually dehiscent, they split apart and release seeds on maturity.

Root

Palouse Prairie Foundation says B. rubra reproduces by seed and that its perenating organ [the feature that makes it a perennial] is a caudex. It rises from a caudex … a short stem that persists from growing season to growing season.

Northern Rockies Natural History Guide says its ‘habit’ is creeping. My root photo suggests a rhizome. And the clumps of plants seem to indicate creeping via rhizome.

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I have no information on the vector of pollination. I’ve seen nothing on the presence or absence of a nectary.

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Gardening.eu says it becomes a tree as years go by. That seems unlikely unless there is a special definition of tree that I don’t know.

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Biodiversity Heritage Library is a bibliography sort of thing.

This are papers on B. rubra

http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/name/Besseya_rubra

One article 1998, one 1979, one 1958, the many others more or less a hundred years old.