Wildflower walk August 25, 2012 – photos from the city August 27, 2012
143 photos, 46 keepers – 1:25 in the park – hot
Left apartment at noon. Arrived at the park about one after tire repair. It’s 3 pm now and I’ve been here at the computer awhile.
Went for tire repair before wildflower walk. Repair unneeded, bad valve.
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Camera setting on aperture preferred. EV setting reduced to 1.0. The EV reduction seems to have helped with the bleaching problem. Little work with ‘levels’ in the computer this time.
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I have been reading botany and writing a ‘simplification’ that might be of use to people walking Drumheller Springs Park
I’ve written short articles on meristems and stems. I’m trying to make sense of roots.
I thought I would look at roots with my camera, this outing. roots in general and root-hairs in particular.
Failure, at least so far. Root-hairs are said to be ‘invisible to the naked eye’. The fine roots one sees are not root-hairs, or so it seems.
It seems that root-hairs may be invisible to the macro feature on my camera as well as my naked eye.
I didn’t get root-hairs, this time. But it finally occurred to me that it is also said that root-hairs live only a short time and are fragile. They are destroyed easily. Yanking the plant from the ground is probably not a way to preserve them.
Maybe I have to dig up plants carefully and wash their roots very gently. Maybe that will work. I don’t know yet.
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I parked near the fireplug on Euclid
I turned a fallen willow trunk into a worktable.
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I photographed the ‘crown’ of the cocklebur. ‘The crown’ is the transition from stem to root. It is said that if you bury the crown the plant will [often] rot.
‘Adventitious’ seems to be a botanical translation of ‘oops’. Adventitious leaves, roots, whatever are not where they are supposed to be. I photographed adventitious roots on the base of the stem of the cocklebur.
It looks, in my photographs, like ‘lateral roots’ are originating on the old root near the surface of the ground and on the base of the stem above ground.
My reading says that undifferentiated cells [like stem-cells in animals] originate at the tip of the root, elongate in a region of elongation above the root tip and differentiate into the various cells of root tissue in a region of differentiation above the region of elongation.
There is also a secondary ‘cylinder’ meristem that thickens the root.
Well, damn! My reading must have left out information about the pericycle [where lateral roots originate] being a third meristem region. I expected to find new lateral roots only at the bottom of the root, near the region of differentiation.
The first photo of a ‘fine root’ shows no root-hairs in the sunlight. There seems to be texture on the root in the shade but that is probably a deception. No fine root photos showed root-hairs.
I was, of course, trying to photograph what I could not see.
New unanswered questions are, how long are the regions of meristem, elongation and differentiation? What visual indication is there of transition between them? What indicates the transition to ‘mature root’?
If you have answers to these questions, please enlighten me.
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The spider wouldn’t pose for me.
The bug was a little more considerate.
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I attempted more grass and grass seed photographs.
I was surprised by the size of the region of dry moss on the west slope of high point
I enjoy the curling forms of Epilobium brachycarpum, autumn willow herb. I tried for the spider web but nothing good happened.
August 27, 2012
I decided to be an im-purist. I picked a Polygonum fowleri plant and several branches from a driveway in town and have, finally, got some blossoms.
The blossoms are nearly impossible for me to pick-out till I get the photos into the camera. They are white specks. You can get an idea of their size from the size of my fingertips in the photos.
I thought the translucent material on the stem was stipule but perhaps not. It seems to be some sort of protective sheath.
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| Xanthium strumarium, cocklebur on my willow trunk workbench |
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| Adventitious roots developing on the base of the stem |
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| A fine root no apparent root-hairs on any of the fine root photos |
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| Bidens vulgata, tall beggartick |
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| South Pond in late August, 2012 |
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| The 'burgandy' leaves are a deviant Prunus virginiana Shrubs in the park are most ofen on little hillocks of soil that may date from the seasonal freezing and thawing of the ice ages |
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| An unidentified grass from the south pond pond bottom |
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| Chenopodium album, lamb’s quarters |
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| My internet reading says most dicots develop taproots Monocots develop 'diffuse' roots of equal length The lateral roots of the lamb's quarters [a dicot] look more 'regular' than the roots of the grasses [monocots] |
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| The best lamb's quarters blossoms so far |
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| Blurred spider looks a little better small |
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| Unidentified grass |
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| No such bulb-like base on earlier grass root but it may have been immature |
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| Node enclosed in leaf characteristic of grass [if not characteristic ... please complain by email spokanewildflowers.slatsz@yahoo.com] |
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| Unidentified grass Node doesn't look to be enclosed in leaf |
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| Large patch of dry moss West flank of high point rock west of north pond |
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| Epilobioum brachycarpum, autumn willow herb |
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| Polygonum fowleri August 27, 2012 - from a driveway in the city |
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| Best blossoms so far |
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