fairy lantern ~ 07/14/11 ~ Garland Ranch

fairy lantern / white globe lily
Calochortus albus
Liliaceae

I remember hiking past fairy lantern seed pods in the past and not knowing what they were at all. Now that I'm beginning to recognize a decent set of local flowers, I'm gradually discovering the beauty and identity of the structures that surround seeds, such as pods and fruits. It's a natural progression of my learning curve.

I've recently reorganized my labels for plants and have edited and added new labels, such as *fruits/seeds. My eventual goal is that someone visiting my blog can click on a name in the labels (at the bottom of every post) and see how a plant looks throughout the year and note some locations it can be found. I've mostly done this for poison-oak already since it is ubiquitous. Plus, you may start seeing labels with a number added to the end, like poison-oak 2. I'm designating the numbered labels for when the plant is pictured but is not the focus of the post. I'm hoping this will help give a sense of the habitat and what other plants can be found with it.

As a final blogging brief note, I often choose a less attractive photo for posting to Nature ID if it shows the features I want to highlight, such as the three part seed pod of the fairy lantern. This sometimes makes for a less visually appealing blog, but that's not my primary purpose.

CA bay ~ 07/14/11 ~ Garland Ranch

California bay / Oregon myrtle
Umbellularia californica
Lauraceae

I've been on the lookout for the fruit of California bays, ever since last November when Brad at Rooted in California and Christine at Idora Design posted about being able to eat the flesh like an avocado and roasting the nut. Unfortunately, these won't ripen until October or November. Brad followed up with a post of his experience roasting and eating the nut. By far the best video I've seen of how to actually roast the nut is at FeralKevin. Also, the leaves can be used in cooking, but they are pungent compared to the store-bought bay leaves (Laurus nobilis).

Lewis' clarkia ~ 07/14/11 ~ Garland Ranch

Lewis' clarkia
Clarkia lewisii
CNPS 8th Edition Inventory
Onagraceae

I almost didn't post this flower thinking it was the same speckled clarkia (C. cylindrica) I saw at Pinnacles last month. Nope. It's different. I guess. I looked at plant lists from both locations and each species is not found at the other location.

I found very little information or pictures online of C. lewisii. It's an uncommon plant in CA, but according to the new Wildflowers of Garland Ranch - a field guide by Michael Mitchell and Rod M. Yeager, it's abundant here, which I found to be true. While CalPhotos and Flickr's Califlora make no mention of Lewis' clarkia, Calflora.org used to rank it as the same species as punch bowl godetia (Clarkia bottae), but Jepson still treats the two as different species with slightly different ranges (click here and here for more information). Confused? Yep, me, too.

In any case, I took numerous pictures of this flower to document the variety I saw. Some had speckles, some did not, some had "normal" looking stigmas, and some had fuzzy white little crosses. Can anyone explain the fuzzy white little crosses to me? Are they stigmas? And, I took the last close-up picture to remind me why they're related to elegant clarkia (C. unguiculata). For another picture of how white the center can get, check out my Flickr post.

ps 08/26/11 - Thanks to a little mention on Wayne's Word discovered the little white crosses are stigmas next to withered anthers. It has something to do with protandry and favoring cross-pollination between different plants. I'll still need to look into this.

pss 03/04/14 - Was talking about these with a nature friend, who hadn't heard of Lewis' clarkia.  From a CNPS trip last year, I remembered our leader said C. lewisii buds dangle over like a pendant, whereas C. bottae buds are straighter.  I believe the step-back shot above actually includes both spp. of clarkia.  I switched out the original first 2 photos with Lewis' and may add a second post for punch bowl godetia.

fat solomon ~ 07/14/11 ~ Garland Ranch

fat Solomon / feathery false lily of the valley / false Solomon's seal

Maianthemum racemosum (aka Smilacina racemosa)
Asparagaceae (formerly Ruscaceae & Liliaceae)

As with slim Solomon, another false Solomon's seal, there's quite the variation of names. The berries are pretty. Most of the fat Solomon we found along the trail had missing berries and stems as shown in the second pic above. I wonder if deer or horses like to eat them. This trail is a popular horse riding route with several stables nearby.

Now here in CA, we don't have actual Solomon's seal. There are numerous websites devoted to herbal uses. Two that have some name origin and historical use information, not soley trying to hard sell you on their products, are Botanical.com (Polygonatum multiflorum native to Europe and Asia) and Cortesia's Solomon Seal blog (P. biflorum native to eastern North America). There's also a nice online chapter of The Book of Herbal Wisdom by Matthew Wood. I wish I could find as much information about indigenous peoples' uses of CA native plants.

ps 07/20/11 - Thanks to Particia Lichen's comment below about the general confusion around Solomon's seal ID, both the real dealio and the false ones, I'm repeating my reply. When I was in OH, I never could remember which had flowers hanging from the underside of the leaf stalks (true) and which had flowers on the ends (false). Until researching for this post I wasn't aware we didn't have Polygonatum (true) here in CA. As for the false Somolon's seals, fat and slim refer to the overall look of the leaves. The one shown above has wide leaves and the slim Solomon has skinnier leaves. Feathery and starry are also descriptive of the look of the flowers. These common name descriptors are helpful to remember since I found both plants in the same park.