12/26/2012 4:27:11 PM
See, the problems is, we went out and made a hell of a lot of photographs of wildflowers … thousands, over a period of 6 years … before getting around to learning what other people could tell us about botany in general and about particular plants. [Of course there was ‘evolutionary knowledge’ but no ‘organized knowledge’].
So now I’m reading about plants on the internet and sorting my photos of this and that into what would be meaningful categories if I had done the reading first and the photographing second.
So.
I’m reading about plants and looking through my photos to see if I can find photos that show what the experts are talking about.
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PHLOX CAESPITOSA
Native
Polemoniaceae
Perennial
Tap rooted
Evergreen foliage
glandular
A ‘subshrub’
Somewhat woody
USDA: Most western states, except Arizona
Burke: Most counties east of the Cascades but only mountain counties in southeast Washington
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I’m going to make a guess at the life history of Phlox caespitosa. I’ll be able to verify or deny my speculation next year but for now, I’m stuck with a guess.
I suppose a seed germinates and sends up a single herbal stem. The stem goes dormant in the heat and perhaps it’s beaten down by the snow.
The stem becomes woody and it extends horizontally. Each year herbal stems reach upward from the woody stem.
Question: Does the vaguely circular ‘mat’ develop from horizontal branches off the original stem or do several stems originate from a single root?
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I have only noticed one ‘single’ plant and it seems to already have a woody horizontal stem. I didn’t think to photograph the stem but there is only one blossom to a herbal stem and you see several blossoms in the photo.
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I took this woody ‘branch’ from a ‘patch’ of P. caespitosa.
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The foliage of the shrub structures have different colors at different times. Something else to pay attention to, next year. For instance, will the foliage ‘green up’ after a rain during the summer drought? Is a new plant green and an older plant ‘silvery’?
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Phlox caespitosa shrubs in the wild don’t seem to grow together crowding out other plants. They seem to be somewhat isolated. I think gardeners use them as ‘ground cover’.
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Phlox caespitosa blossoms are at the apex of stems.
The petals [the corolla] are fused into a tall tube that spreads into five lobes that are often quite flat in appearance.
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The corollas are usually white in Drumheller Springs Park
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The lobes that serve as petals seem usually to be mostly rounded but some are quite angular. I need to look for the ‘wooly stems’ lacking glandular drops and ‘hairy’ bracts that indicate Phlox hoodii on plants with ‘angular’ petals.
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This photo seems to suggest that the ‘petals’ grow angular as they dry.
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A little graphics play.
The filaments of the stamen are fused to the side of the corolla.
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It isn’t clear from this photo that the filaments of the stamen, the supporting column for the anther, originates in the side of the corolla column but they do.
The stigma at the top of the pistil is branched in three, ‘feeding’ the three carpels of the ovary.
It’s hard to see that the stigma is three lobes but you can see a third if you look carefully.
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A short digression on the stigma and the style
The name ‘style’ is taken from the Greek word for column. It is a mere tube. In Phlox caespitosa it is three tubes fused into a single column, supporting the stigma. A fused style is not, it seems, unusual.
The stigma at the top of the style is sticky or feathery or has some structural feature to capture pollen.
Having been captured, the pollen grows a tube down through the tube of the style to fertilize an ovule.
The stigma and/or the style may have features to prevent pollen from the wrong side of the tracks from doing their thing.
They may even be able, in some cases, to prevent self-pollination.
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The ovary is seated in a shallow nectary.
The insects and animals [if any] that pollenate Phlox caespitosa will be after the nectar in the nectary.
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Phlox caespitosa is ‘glandular’.
My photos show some calyx that are more hairy and some less. That could be a problem with failed ‘depth of field’. Some backlit photos of buds show the most ‘hair’.
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The ‘hairs’ are glands or pores exiting glands. They have drops on the tip.
I am not able to find anything on the function of the glandular [secretions?] [excretions?].
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The sepals [sepals form the calyx at the base of the blossom] are thick green fingers reaching about half way up the fused tube of the corolla. [Montana Plant life says the calyx reaches less than half way up the tube of the corolla.]
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When the buds are well developed, prior to opening, the overlapping ‘petals’ have a twisted appearance. This is said to be typical of Phlox and some other Polemoniaceae
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The leaves are said to be opposite but I can’t see that in my photos. It is something I could check, even in winter, but there is snow cover in December this year.
The leaves are narrow, thick and pointed. Montana Plant life says the leaves are ‘white edged’. My photos don’t show white, except that the leaves are somewhat ‘hairy’.
The leaves are said to be pungent in Montana Plant Life. I had not noticed that. I’ll try to pay attention next year.
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The fruit of Phlox caespitosa is a loculicidal capsule, a dry fruit.
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Digression on fruit:
A fruit is a ‘ripened’ ovary.
Fruits contain a plant’s seeds.
There are many kinds of fruit. There are several kinds of capsule. The difference in the named capsules seems to be the way they ‘dehisce’, open, if they open. They open along definite weakened places.
Two of the Several Capsules
If, when the capsules open they merely expose the carpels, the capsules are loculicidal capsules.
If, when the capsules open they expose the seeds they are septicidal capsules.
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Some capsules don’t open, they are indehiscent. The capsules may, for instance, pass through the digestive system of an animal to expose their seeds. Nuts, in the botanical definition, are indehiscent. Most, but not all nuts in the culinary definition are nuts in the botanical definition.
End Digression
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Phlox caespitosa in bud.
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The Phlox caespitosa ovary is composed of three fused carpels. Notice the faint lines meeting at the brown style.
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The carpels ‘ripen’. They come apart when the capsule opens.
I don’t find information about the process of exposing the seeds within the carpel for germination.
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Medicinal Uses [by Navajo Indians]
Burn dressing
Cathartic
Ceremonial medicine … crushed with other plants … to make the Night Chant liniment.
A diuretic
Gynecological aid for child birth
Toothache
[Pain killer?]
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POLEMONIACEAE, Phlox family
Wikipedia
About 25 genera, 270-400 species of annual and perennial plants.
One genus in Europe , Polemonium. Two genuses in Asia , Phlox and Polemonium, only in cool and arctic regions. Some in South America . Most in western North America, mostly in California California
There are few species of Polemonium east of the Mississippi River but the phlox genus is rather diverse.
Polemoniaceae are distinguished from other eudicot families by the ovary made up of three fused carpels, usually with three chambers but one in some species.
[[More fun with language: Eudicotyledons, Eudicots, ‘true dicots’, or tricolpates, are now [since 1991?] terms for the majority of dicots. Eudicots are a later evolutionary divergence from earlier, less specialized dicots. The remnant dicots are sometimes called paleodicots or basal angiosperms but these terms have not been widely adopted. Ranunculus glaberrimus, sagebrush buttercup is a ‘paleodicot’.]]
5 sepals
5 petals, fused
5 stamens alternate with the lobes of the corolla.
Few are of economic importance. There are widely grown ornamentals, including phlox species.
Kantuata is the national flower of Bolivia and Peru
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The Tree of Life
No single morphological feature uniquely identifies a member of the Phlox family.
[The list of distinguishing characteristics list same as above.]
Stamens may be superficially connected to the corolla in some lineages, but are fused completely into the corolla tube in most species.
Three stigmatic lobes indicate that three carpels form the ovary.
Another common feature of Polmoniacea is a nectary disk at the base of the ovary. The typical mature fruit is a loculicidal capsule. [The fruit/capsule has compartments, locules.] The petals lobes overlap each other on one edge in bud.
Food and Medicine
Historically, many Polemoniaceae species have been exploited by native American cultures for a wide range of uses. Over 40 species from eight genera were used by native tribes in North America (Moerman, 1998), with uses ranging from utilitarian (leaves to cover berry baskets), food (from seeds), hygiene (face and hair washing) to general (fever) or specific (scorpion stings) medicinal treatments. Brand (1907) indicates Peruvian Indians made use of a soapy solution derived from Cantua pyrifolia leaves for laundry. Espinolla, one of several common names for Loeselia coccinea, a popular herb in Mexico
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Polemonium species found in Drumheller Springs Park
Polemonium micranthum, Jacob’s ladder
Microsteris gracilis, Slender Phlox
Navarretia intertexta
Phlox caespitosa, Tufted phlox
[I didn’t find either Collomia in Drumheller Springs Park
Collomia grandiflora
Collomia linearis
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