slatsz' wildflower walks 2012 #3: August 18, 2012 - Xanthium strumarium, cocklebur

New blossoming:

Xanthium strumarium, cocklebur

Chenopodium album, lamb’s quarters

Amaranthus albus, prostate pigweed or tumbleweed

Arrived 8:10 a. m. Two hours forty minutes. 237 photos, 94 keepers … saw a migratory dove across the street from the park … lots of rush skeleton weed in bloom, one spotted knapweed blossom.

I parked near the fireplug on Euclid. I wanted to improve my photos of Eriogonum niveum, snow buckwheat on the rock outcrop nearby and to look at the plants of the mudflats of south pond.

Snow buckwheat blossoms are invisible to me till I get my nose almost down among them. They are beauties when I blow them up in the computer.

All of the snow buckwheat plants in the park are scrawny even though those at the west end that seem to be proliferating. But just across the street from the fireplug by a powerpole, near the monument for Spokane Gary’s School there is a plant thick with blossoms. My photo is unfortunately bleached but it’s enough to remind me that the plant exists and where I can find it.

I walked over to the west mudflat of south pond and found Xanthium strumarium, cocklebur in bloom.

Near it, in the shade most of the day, were luxurious Chenopodium album, lamb’s quarters. The one I pulled had a ‘mandrake root’. [‘Go and catch a falling star/ get with child a mandrake root …’ John Donne]

Burke’s description of the lamb’s quarters flowers: “Flowers perfect, glomerate in large, terminal panicles; perianth 5-cleft to below the middle, with a mealy coating, becoming strongly keeled and completely covering the fruit; stamens 5, opposite the perianth lobes; styles 2, short.”

From The Free Online Dictionary: Glomerate: Formed into a compact rounded mass; tightly clustered; conglomerate. [Latin glomer tus, past participle of glomer re, to wind into a ball …”

I assumed I was looking at a bud but I was looking at a flower. I need better photos. But even these seem to show tiny stamens sticking out of some of the balls.

The first spider looks to be a jumping spider. From its wing span I suppose other spider is a crab spider.

I brought a pick and a plastic clamp I scavenged somewhere for my attempts at dissection. I still can’t find my tweezers but I could sort of make-do with the pick. I was surprised at the large base on the disk flower of Bidens vulgata, tall beggar-tick. I need to find out about that.

I managed to pull away the bracts exposing the sepals then pulled away the sepals to expose the base of the disk flowers.

I walked around to the north mudflat of south pond to improve my photos of Lythrum salicaria, purple loosestrife. Apparently my dissection movie went out of style. Dissection

of purple loosestrife was my intention but I didn’t do it.

I walked the main trail down past long rock ridge then north across the park. I broke off a branch of Melilotus officinalis, yellow sweet clover and photographed it sitting on slatsz’ stump.

I had done a little reading on bunch grass … and other grasses. I photographed the nearest, most convenient bunch of bunch grass.

Well! I did a Google search just now, trying to find, again, my sources for bunch grass information and stumbled into ‘Eastern Washington Grasses’ by Bentler:

http://www.bentler.us/eastern-washington/plants/grass/default.aspx

Ten photos on the main page.

“Bluebunch wheatgrass is among the most widespread bunchgrasses growing in the semi-desert Columbia Basin of Eastern Washington. This bunchgrass was unanimously adopted as a new state symbol in 1989, as part of Washington's Centennial celebration: it's our state grass.”

Bentler has … damn … lost a term … links to other sources of information. [‘Hyperlinks’ maybe?] USDS says bluebunch wheatgrass is Pseudoroegneria spicata.

PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY, ‘proudly operated by Battelle since 1965’: http://science-ed.pnnl.gov/pals/resource/cards/bunchgrass.stm

“What About Bunchgrass”

“Several species of bunchgrass grow in the Columbia Basin. The most typical species is bluebunch wheatgrass. This vigorous plant can reach 1 foot in diameter and grow more than 3 feet tall. Like all bunchgrasses in the Basin, bluebunch wheatgrass is called a "cool season" perennial, because its growth occurs mainly in spring and early summer when soil moisture is available.”

In the process of photographing the bunchgrass I decided to dink a bit with the camera. I changed the ‘EV’ setting and some of the problem with bleached photos went away!

I did some reading on EV when I got home. Nice article:

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY SCHOOL

Ev EXPLAINED

http://digital-photography-school.com/ev-compensation-explained

The author says the default settings on his Nikon took photos that were too light. He had to reduce the ev.

My photos are mostly, but not all, too light, so I have to pay attention.

I took an Epilobium brachycarpum, autumn willow herb hoping to improve my photos. The blossoms are so small I can’t get good images of the interior.

The hypanthium was not as developed as I expected it to be. I thought for a moment I had found a new species.

I attempted a couple of landscapes trying to get the feeling of hot, dry August in the park.

And as I was in landscape mode I got an image of one of the stream-like formations of rock rubble.

These formations seem frequently to be associated with the strange piles of soil with shrubs on them. One explanation says they are related and go back thirteen thousand years [or so] to the ice age; that they result from seasonal freezing and thawing at that time.

I did snapshots of the long blossoming Centaurea cyanus, bachelor button and the long blossoming Grindelia hirsutula, curly-cup gum-weed. I also photographed the ‘fall colors’ on Ribes aureum, golden currant.

In future years, perhaps, we can get a last blossoming date as well as a first blossoming date for the various species.

It would be even more useful to casual walkers of wildflowers to have an ‘optimum’ date for viewing the species. When, for instance, in 2012 was it best displayed?

The grass of north pond bottom is apparently Phalaris arundinacea, reed canary-grass.

It was over 7 feet tall last year. It’s more like 5 feet tall this year.

Noxious Weeds, King County

http://www.kingcounty.gov/environment/animalsAndPlants/noxious-weeds/weed-identification/reed-canarygrass.aspx

“ Reed canarygrass is a tall wetland grass that forms dense, single-species stands. It chokes out streams and ditches increasing flooding and impeding salmon and other fish. Although used at times for forage in wet pastures, it can cause indigestion and illness in livestock.
Reed canarygrass grows 3 to 6 feet tall …” “This aggressive grass poses many challenges to management and creates significant problems for restoration projects. It spreads by rhizomes, fragments and seeds. The dense rhizomatous mats exclude other roots and make removal highly difficult. Stems fall and form mounds by the end of summer, further inhibiting native wetland species from re-colonizing infested areas.”
*

The mudflat west of north pond has a patch of what I am calling ‘blond grass’. It glistens in the sun.

I recorded the grass of the blond patch, the reed canary-grass and an unidentified tall stalk of grass I picked up on the way to find a sit-down.

The photo of the unidentified grass stalk has my current dissection tools in it.

When I got back to the car I saw a strange plant growing in the crack between the curb and the asphalt. I attempted photos in situ but they failed.

I thought it might be a scrawny Amaranthus retroflexus, red-root pigweed. But the photos in Burke strongly suggest it’s Amaranthus albus, prostate pigweed or tumbleweed. But the plant description says prostate pigweed is basally branched and this plant has a tree-like single stem.

Its ‘flower’ description is a dandy [mostly worthless to me]: “Flowers in small, axillary clusters, subtended by several narrowly lanceolate to needle-shaped bracts 1.5-3 mm. long; sepals 4-5, distinct, those of the pistillate flowers unequal, the longest equal to and like the bracts; those of the staminate flowers smaller, scale-like, acute but not spine-tipped; petals none; stamens 3 or 4; styles 3.”
I didn’t think it had blossoms but it probably does.

I need to look for this plant elsewhere to check for basal branching.