Collinsia parviflora, blue eyed Mary

8/17/2014 2:24 PM

I have been honored by 2 requests for photos for publications, Judith Lowry, for her book on Amelanchier alnifolia and Professor Anton Weber of Vienna, Austria, for his book on inflorescence.

Professor Weber has provided me with helpful information on Collinsia parviflora that I have found no where else.

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Collinsia parviflora, blue eyed Mary; Plantaginaceae, mare’s tail family. Formerly Scrophulariaceae, figwort family.

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C. parviflora is native plant, an annual. Said by one source to be ‘from taproot’. That doesn’t seem consistent with annuals.

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This is the first of the flowers with bilateral symmetry. The flower is not more or less round like most flowers. The two sides are [more or less] mirror images, like humans.

It is a ‘keel’ flower like the flowers of the pea family. One source compared it to violas. The divided ‘banner’ is there on the viola but not the keel.

Note the purple ‘keel’ in the photo below. It is actually a third lobe of the lower ‘lip’ of the flower folded to form a keel.

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Burke Herbarium:

M. parviflora occurs in most counties of Washington except some counties in southwest Washington. It is found south to California and Colorado, east to Ontario and Michigan.

Habitat

Lowlands to Alpine Meadows in areas of moist spring.

Other sources say moist in spring with dry summers. There are patches of C. parviflora in Drumheller Springs Park that seem to be in very dry environments.

Often found in masses. [Therefore an overwhelming competitor?]

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Leaves

A short digression on leaf arrangements from Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllotaxis

Phyllotaxy is the arrangement of leaves on a plant stem.

The basic phyllotactic patterns are opposite or alternate.

There are certain ‘growing points’ on a plant. The tip of each stem or branch and the tip of each root are growing points. But there are also growing points at various points along the stem. The growing points on a stem are often but not always marked by a little swelling that looks like a ring. The growing points on the stem are called nodes. The region between the nodes is called an internode.

Leaves, flowers and branches don’t occur just anywhere on a stem. They occur at nodes.  

Leaves of an alternate pattern are one leaf to a node. Leaves of an opposite pattern are two leaves opposite each other on a node.

More than two leaves arising from the node are said to be whorled. An opposite pattern can be said to be a whorl of two leaves.

Basal leaves are a whorl if internodes are short or none. A basal whorl with a large number of leaves in a circle is a rosette.

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The upper leaves on C. parviflora are a whorl. C. parviflora does not have basal leaves.

The inflorescence is indeterminate. There is a whorl of leaves and flowers near the top of the plant and another is forming at the top in the photo below.

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A short digression on leaves that are not leaves.

Most botanists divide the plant world up into monocotyledons and dicotyledons. Cotyledons are also called ‘seed leaves’. Monocots have one seed leaf uncurling from the seed and poking up through the earth first. Dicots have two seed leaves. Cotyledons are able to keep the plant going on seed energy while it develops real leaves and gets its mature energy process, photosynthesis, going. Cotyledons dry up after their work is done.

Various sources on C. parviflora refer to lower leaves and some sources comment that the lower leaves are ‘shed’ early. The so-called lower leaves look like cotyledons rather than true leaves to me.

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The mature leaves have a smooth surface, [they are glabrous,] the margins of the leaf are smooth, [they are entire]. The edges of the leaves are turned under. They have a distinctive apparent cleft that I suppose marks a mid-rib. The leaves are long and somewhat narrow. The apex [the tip] is pointed on some leaves and rounded on other on the same plant, even on leaves from the same node.

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Flowers

The flowers are said to be bilabiate [two lipped]. The top ‘lip’ also called a banner, is two lobed, often rather white. It can be somewhat blue.

The lower lip seems to be two lobed but it is three lobed. The middle lobe is folded into a keel. The middle lobe contains the reproductive organs. They seem to be hard to get to but the plant is prolific, anyway.

Professor Weber speculates that C. parviflora may be self-fertilizing.

Northern Rockies Natural History Guide says the middle lobe of lower lip is rolled inwards.

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The flower is a tube with two lips. The tube seems to sit at an angle in the calyx.

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I don’t know what to think about the flower below. Has the tube collapsed or has it not developed?

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A little gallery of front views

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Some photos of buds

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A bud in early development at the top of the plant. A bud with more development off to one side.

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A bud at the top of the plant

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Fruit

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Root

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The root is not likely to be food storage. It is a tap root because it has a singular look and grows deep into the earth. Roots of some plants are a fibrous mass spread out near the surface.

Plants

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Interesting that the pedicel, above the node, in the following photo is so much more slender than the peduncle, the stem below the node. I suppose it will ‘lay down’ and be a lateral branch. There is a very dim bud in the leaves spreading from the node that will be a continuation of the peduncle.