Greya moth ~ 04/15/14 ~ Pinnacles

Greya moth on woodland star

Greya sp. on Lithophragma affine

Saxifragaceae

Paul showed me this tiny moth nectaring on a woodland star.  In the sunlight, it has a lovely pearly sheen.  He said they can also be found with their butts stuck in there.  Some Greya spp. are known to lay eggs in the calyx, which also serves as an effective means of pollination for the flower.  Reportedly, the larvae feed on the developing seed, although later instars and other Greya spp. can also mine leaves. The Thompson Lab at UC Santa Cruz has been looking into the coevolutionary relationship between Greya moths and their host plants across western North America, including at Pinnacles.  The two reported spp. for Pinnacles are G. obscura (more info) and G. politella (more info).  Paul and I have been going back and forth over the ID of this particular individual.  My vote is G. obscura, but if questioned enough, I'll double-check ad nauseam.  I've asked opinions from others, and everyone has their own preferred way at arriving at an ID possibility:  wing pattern and size, behavior on specific host or nectar sources, dissection of genitalia, DNA analysis.

woodland star ~ 04/08/14 ~ Pinnacles

woodland star

Lithophragma affine

Saxifragaceae

posted 04/15/14 - I double-checked with the CNPS folks 2 days later whether they considered the calyx here as being V-shaped (obconic), not square (bell-shaped) as with the hill star (L. heterophyllum).  Yes, V-shaped, obconic, woodland star, L. affine.  Note the green stem.  It can also be red.

woodland star ~ 04/06/14 ~ Garland Ranch

woodand star

Lithophragma affine

Saxifragaceae

Thanks to Wildflowers of Garland Ranch by Michael Mitchell and Rod M. Yeager, I knew both hill star and woodland star occur here.  It's been a very handy go-to guide for local plants.  Three years ago I photographed the square-calyxed L. heterophyllum, and I've been on the search for this v-shaped L. affine ever since.  Note the pretty red stem.

ps 04/22/14 - I discovered there are other Lithophragma found in our area.  I just noticed the 3-lobed petals shown above have notches, whereas the green one I photographed at Pinnacles does not.  I don't know if that's a common variation of L. affine.  There is a possibility this is a smallflower woodland star (Lithophragma parviflorum var. parviflorum), but I don't know the difference. 

hill star ~ 04/08/11 ~ Garland Ranch

hill star
Lithophragma heterophyllum
Saxifragaceae

Oy! It's taken me a while to figure out which species this is as several Lithophragma flowers look exactly alike with small, white, fringy flowers on long stalks. A few years ago, I even wondered if the color of the stalk, green or red, had anything to do with the different species. Nope.

Thanks to multiple sources, there are only two species recorded for Garland Ranch, L. heterophyllum and L. affine (commonly known as woodland star; please note other species are also called this). At our recent wildflower show, a very friendly volunteer overheard my conversation with my companion as I was describing my confusion between the two. She pointed out differences in the leaves, with one being roundish and the other being deeply lobed to the point of looking spindly. I thought, "Aha!" Again, nope. As you can see from my 2nd and 3rd pictures above, there's a variety of leaf shapes found on the same plant.

However, after researching this, including looking up Jepson's descriptions, I would have assumed the plant samples were inadvertently switched, except that my pictures from the wildflower event clearly show what I now consider a more reliable distinction: L. heterophyllum has a squarish calyx base (bell-shaped or U-shaped), whereas L. affine has a tapered calyx (obconic or V-shaped).

Are you confused, yet? I am and may have to review/edit this later and make sure I got it correct.

California saxifrage
Saxifraga californica
Saxifragaceae

I haven't spotted a saxifrage in a very long time, actually not since March 14, 2009 at Fort Ord. The blurry second pic with my hand is to show just how tiny these flowers are and why they can be easily overlooked. Indeed, this was one flower that was not included in the Garland Ranch Visitor Center's current blooms display, despite the fact they were feet away from the only spot of Padres' shootingstars we saw during this hike. The shootingstars were also mentioned to us from a friend we ran into who regularly volunteers at Garland - Hi, Andy! - not my Andy, but a female Andy. I love the delicate combination of salmon colored anthers of the California saxifrage with the bright green ovaries (they look like they're split in two) and enveloped in white petal folds. Can you tell I've been refreshing my memory on flower parts?

California saxifrage
Saxifraga californica
Saxifragaceae

These are fairly small flowers, but I love the close-up details. I wonder how often I have hiked past these and not noticed.