California Horkelia

Horkelia californica

California Horkelia (Horkelia californica) is a rare plant that I found in our oak grove. There are just a few patches along the dry bed of a brook. The only other flowering plants there right now is milkweed (Asclepias). So what can we deduce by looking at the plant?

Horkelia flower

Well, it is covered by by fuzz much like the plants of the borage family. Is it a member of Boraginaceae? No. The flower is rather small with five white petals? Could it be a member of Caryophyllaceae (Carnation family)? No. The plant belong to... Rose family. Yes, it does not resemble any known Rosaceae members except for the fact that it has 5 petals.

A flower before (or after) petals become white

Proboscidea parviflora

Proboscidea parviflora definitely looks like a desert plant

Today I am going to show you one of the very rare plants. Well. at least it is rare in this area. The name is Proboscidea parviflora or devils horn. Other common names are ram's horns, devils' claw or unicorn plant. It is a low growing plant with big wide leaves. The flowers are rather big compared to the size of the plant. The plant produces seed pods that look like ram's horns. hence the common name. The stem is covered with hairs and is sticky to the touch.

Proboscidea parviflora

In spite of the sinister name, the fruits of this plant are edible while they are soft. As they mature they become too woody.
 

Proboscidea parviflora (devils' horns)

The plant is part of the family Martyniaceae. It used to be part of the order Scrophulariales (the order is the rank above family, indeed it does have superficial resemblance to Schrophulariae) but now is considered to be part of Lamiales.

Brodiaea

 Brodiaea californica

There are two kinds of Brodiaea that grow near the place where I live. It used to be part of lily family, in fact the common name for it is cluster lily. Now it is considered to be part of the Asparagus family (Asparagaceae). The plant grows from corm (kind of like tuber , basically a storage organ that allows plant to survive cold winter or hot summers). The six petals are joined at the base to form a tube. There are a few leaves but they don't join the stem but grow from the corm. The stem is bare.

Blue dicks in the meadow

So one genus is more commonly known as blue dicks: these are the ones that carry cluster of blue flowers on one rather tall stem. The Latin name is either Dichelostemma capitatum or Brodiaea. (There a few more synonyms. I prefer the term Brodiaea as the flower is exactly identical to the one that is known as Brodiaea californica. Those are very low growing plants similar to blue dicks but they carry only one flower per stem and the flower is a little bigger.

And here is Brodiaea californica. The two kinds of flowers are commonly seen together if you catch them at the right blooming period which is rather short.

Brodiaea californica

On the side note there is yet another plant that is most likely belong to the Asparagus family because it looks a lot like a wild asparagus but I am not really sure as it is almost impossible to find good pictures of wild asparagus. (But there are more than plenty of the cultivated kind.) So for the curious here is the picture. If you can identify it, please leave a comment below.

Unknown plant (Wild asparagus?)

Close-up of the stem looks like wild asparagus

Mallow

Mallow (Malva parviflora) looks good in any meadow

Mallow is a nice plant that grows in abundance in Southern California. It also grows in some places along the trail in the oak forest where I quite often go for a walk. Mallow (Malva parviflora) first attracts your attention with rather big geometrical leaves. In the time of bloom one can notice little whiteflowers hiding under the leaves . The blooming season is short and soon these flowers turn into interesting looking fruits.

Mallow is also considered a medicinal plant as the leaves extract has anti-inflammatory and antibiotic properties. I don't know about chewing a mallow leaf but I would try to rub the leaves against some minor wounds or burns.

Malva parviflora flower

And here is the fruit. It's not unusual to see flowers and fruits on the same plant.

Mallow seeds

Mallow is the core representative of its family, Malvaceae. You might be interested to know that some other well-known members of this family include such commercial crops like okra, cotton and cacao. Hibiscus is another well-known member of this family.

California Buttercup

Ranunculus californicus flower

California Buttercup or Ranunculus californicus is a common species of buttercup though it seems that common buttercup (Ranunculus crepens) is much more...well... common. Up till now I have only seen the latter. The difference is in the number of petals: the creeping variety has only five while californicus has lots of petals (around twelve, though the number varies among species). The leaves are similar: deeply lobed dark green. In fact even in this area this plant is not widespread, unlike creeping buttercup, california variety is rather sparse.

Below you can see the different species of ranunculus.  As the name implies, both are part of the family Ranunculaceae.

California buttercup in the oak grove

And here is the picture of creeping buttercup for comparison:

Creeping buttercup is at home in all kinds  of habitat

Want to see the cultivated variety? Ranunculus makes a vary nice decorative flower as well. Of course you can hardly recognize it, like a rose cultivar, it looks quite different from its wild brothers. In fact, to me it looks very much like a rose.

 Yellow ranunculus cultivar

Menzies' Fiddleneck

 Menzies' fiddleneck

Amsinckia menziesii is a plant of Borage (Boraginaceae) family that right now is blooming in the oak grove where I sometimes go for a walk. They are all over the meadows. Fiddlenecks have small but bright yellow flowers with reddish spots on each petal.

Close up of the fiddleneck flowers

When the plant matures, the upper part of the stem curves, hence the name fiddleneck. The plant starts as a rosette but then grows into erect stem with alternate leaves. Both stem and leaves are covered with coarse hairs, which is typical for borage family.

Fiddleneck inflorescence

Fiddlenecks were one of the first flowers to appear in the meadows and it still doing well. The genus Amsinckia have several species but they are hard to tell apart. Some native Americans used this plant for medicinal purposes.