8/20/2014 8:00 AM
Polemonium
micranthum, Jacob’s ladder, little bells polemonium
Polemoniaceae, Phlox family, Jacob’s ladder family
Native, annual
010
There is very little information about P. micranthum on the
internet.
It is limited to the western USA
except it occurs as a native in the Andes of southern Argentina and
Chili. It has been introduced in Massachusetts .
Burke Herbarium has them as reported from most counties east
of the Cascades. Only Island county west of the Cascades.
It seems there are several to many ‘Jacob’s ladders’.
[Polemonium. Burke lists 8 in Washington
State
Glandular ‘hair’
The stems, branches, leaves and the calyx are covered with
glandular ‘hair’.
Leaves
The basic leaf pattern is alternate. But P. micranthum has
compound leaves in a pinnate [feather like] pattern. Its compound structure has
an ‘opposite’ pattern, opposing leaves on each side of a leaf-stem.
This is the earliest plant in Drumheller Springs
Park
The leaves are covered with hair. [They are pubescent].
Their apex is rather blunt. There are no basal leaves, all leaves are cauline.
[Cauline leaves are at nodes on the flower stalk and branches].
020
030
040
Flowers
The flowers are solitary. They occur at the tip of the
flower stalk and the tip of lateral branches.
The calyx is a fused tube with pointed lobes extending
beyond the petals.
The petals are white. They are rounded in my photo. The
petals have little points in many Burke Herbarium photos.
There are 5 stamen. The three styles are fused. The three
stigma curve away from each other at the top of the fused styles. My photos do
not show the stigma clearly. G. D. Carr has an excellent image of the anthers
and the stigma on the Burke Herbarium site and on his website at EWU.
The ovary is superior so the calyx and petals are attached
below the ovary.
050
060
Some buds
070
080
090
Fruit
The fruit is a three celled capsule. The capsule splits open
at maturity. [It is dehiscent because it splits open at maturity. Most but not
all capsules are dehiscent.]
100
110
120
130
The following two capsules seem to have 5 cells
140
150
This capsule seems to have 6 cells and an interesting bug
160
Plants
Some of these photos suggest to me that the flower stalk is
indeterminate, that what seems to be a terminal flower is successively bypassed
by a bud extending the flower stalk, pedicel of the bypassed flower becoming a
lateral branch. Something to observe more closely next year.
0170
0180
0190
200
210
Node
I don’t have a useful photo of a node. Perhaps this will
help me remember to fix that next year.
220
A deception: Vicia
villosa
Several photos of Vicia villosa, winter vetch foliage
slipped into my collection of P. micranthum photos.
Fortunately I noticed the tendril, the pointed leaves and
the stipules at the nodes.
230
I like photos 060,110,120, 130,140, 150,160, 220
ReplyDelete