Cocklebur

Cocklebur (Xanthium)

Cocklebur or Xanthium is a plant belonging to the aster family (Asteraceae). It has big triangular leaves and the seeds are spead by forming burs that attach to passing humans and animals.

Cocklebur leaf closeup

Cocklebur's green bur can be glimpsed behind a leaf

Cocklebur with lots of green burrs

Death Camas

 Death camas

Death camas are interesting plants with distinctive flowers that make them fairly easy to recognize as death camas. As the name implies, they are extremely poisonous. The trouble though is to point them down to the genus. Death camas used to belong to the genus Zigadenus. Since then phylogenetic research involving DNA analyses split this genus into several others. What used to be Zigadenus elegans is now called Anticlea elegans. Other genera include Toxicoscordion, not to mention species within genera.

Death camas flowers

The trouble is that all these species look very much alike. They all have rather small white flowers with six petals, protruding stamens and yellow-green spots on the petals. The leaves can have angular or rounded edge and the spots can be round or more like a stripe. I was not able to identify the genus with more presicions but my guess it is either Anticlea or Toxicoscordion. They all belong to the family Melanthiaceae but used to be part of the Lily family (Liliaceae).

Silene Gallica

Silene gallica in a meadow near beach

Silene gallica is a plant of the Pink family (Caryophyllaceae) that grows in meadow habitat. The plant is inconspicuous, with rather small pink flowers and hairy stems and leaves.The blooming period is short.

Silene gallica flowers

Ambrosia chamissonis

 Ambrosia chamissonis growing among the dunes

Ambrosia chamissonis (silver beach ragweed) is a plant that I have just recently discovered in our dunes. At first I though it was some kind of chenopodium: the triangular shape of leaves and striped stem led me to this opinion. However I quickly found out that it was Ambrosia or beach ragweed, a member of the Aster family (Asteraceae).

Ambrosia chamissonis leaves

So what's up with this plant who is masquerading as chenopodium when in fact it is an aster? It has leaves that can have different shapes: oval or deeply lobed. The leaves are fleshy but not quite as fleshy as those of succulents. The flowers are in a spike. The stems can be very hairy or just barely. Yet it has some kind of integral appearance and once you know it, it is easy to recognize. I guessed it was the same plant in spite of different shape of the leaves. The fruit is supposed to form a burr but I have not seen those yet.

Here is another picture of the flowers. An interesting thing was that the species with cut-leaves were blooming while the ones with triangular/oval shape were not.

Ambrosia chamissonis in bloom

And here is a picture of the stem:

Ambrosia chamissonis close-up of the stem

Want to see a hairy stem? Here it is:

Ambrosia chamissonis hairy stem

And one more:

Ambrosia chamissonis stem and leaves

Yes, I know I ran amok with this one.  But it is exciting to find some new plant and to be able to identify it quickly.

Like other plants with clusters of usually tiny or very small flowers ragweeds are wind pollinated. These kind of plants may cause hay fever because they need wind to have their pollen spread out unlike flowers that are pollinated by insects. Incidentally this Ambrosia happens to have male and female flowers growing on the same plant.

Why is this plant called Ambrosia (it's a Latin name, too)? Good question. It has smell, not unpleasant but nothing to invoke images of the famous food of the gods. I don't think it is even used as spice.The common name ragweed speaks for itself.

Corn Sandspurry

Corm sandspurry (Spergula arvensis)

Corm sandspurry (Spergula arvensis) is a plant that at first sight can be confused with Gilia millefoliata. They are both tiny inconspicuous plants and the leaves look somewhat similar. However, if you look close, you'll see that the flower structure of spergula is quite different: it has a big pistil in the middle while gilia has none.

Spergula arvensis

Spergula (and very similar to it  spergularia) are part of the Pink family (Caryophyllaceae), which also counts amonng its members such planrs as carnation (Dianthus), campion (Silene), chickweed (Stellaria) etc.

Here is a close-up of the flower of Spergula arvensis:

 Spergula arvensis

And just for comparison here is a picture of sticky sandspurry (Spergularia macrotheca). Notice how similar the flowers look: same distinctly visible petals and similar round pistil.

Spergularia macrotheca

Beach suncup

Beach suncup

Beach suncup is a very attractive plant with bright yellow flowers, rather small but not too small. Well, I like suncups. It looks very close to Sierra suncup, a desert plant. Suncups' Latin name is... well, in a minute. First, note that suncup is another name for evening primrose, so it follows that suncups belong to Evening primrose family (Onagraceae). Like other plants of this family it had 4 petal and cross-like shape of the stigma.

So about this Latin name. Well, the whole idea of the Latin name is to have a unique scientific name that is peculiar to one particular species. It is done for ease of identification because common names are a mess. There can be ten or more genera sharing the same common name. So botanists came out with scientific name for every plant discovered on the planet. However, I found that some plants have two or even more Latin names. This genus suncup and this beach suncup species in particular seems to have six (sic!) Latin names.

So, want to know these names? Here goes: Camissoniopsis cheiranthifolia. Then just listing the genus: Camissonia, Oenothera, Agassizia, Holostigma, Sphaerostigma. Six names in total! Could be even more. Obviously, we can't deal with them all. We'll just pick the most popular one: beach suncup or Camissonia cheiranthifolia.

It first forms a rosette and then shoot out a long stem from it.

Beach suncup (Camissonia cheiranthifolia)

Notice that beach suncup like its desert relative has red spots on the petals (never mind the bug):

Camissonia cheiranthifolia. Notice red spot on the petals.

And here is a picture of Sierra suncup, a plant often seen in a desert:

Sierra suncup (Camissonia sierrae) in the desert

Coast Buckwheat

Eriogonum latifolium

Another common plant in the dune habitat is coast buckwheat (seaside buckwheat). This plant is most easily recognized by its leaves, even when not in bloom. The leaves are coarse but not really fleshy and covered with white fuzz. The flowers are in clusters, the color varies from white to red. The stem can be short or rather long. It is not a vine.

Coast buckwheat (Eriogonum latifolium) is part of the Knotweed family (Polygonaceae) and you can see swollen joints on the stem. Here is picture that shows joints clearer:

Coast buckwheat (Eriogonum latifolium)

Here is a picture with more mature plant that turned pink:

Eriogonum latifolium in bloom