Sunday, March 20, 2011

blue fiesta flower ~ 03/20/11 ~ Fort Ord



blue fiesta flower among Pacific poison-oak
Pholistoma auritum var. auritum among Toxicodendron diversilobum
Boraginaceae (formerly Hydrophyllaceae) and Anacardiaceae
It rained off and on during our hike. These sweet purple faces all seemed to be a bit downturned; I don't know if that's typical or is due to the rain. I had to get really low to the ground, trying to avoid touching the poison-oak, in order to get the first 2 pictures. It's funny the things you notice as you're taking a photo. I've seen blue fiesta flowers blooming in several places, including our recent hike at Pinnacles on March 4, 2011, but believing I had already posted this flower on Nature ID, I haven't bothered photographing it before now.

Also, I'm regretting the day I started including plant family names in my posts. As I've said before, this blog is my learning tool, and I hoped by including family names I could start recognizing related plants. It's been 20 years since I've had any formal botany class and barely remember anything more than the names of flower parts and checking to see if leaf margins have notches. So, here's the rub for the regret: once again as with many other flowers I post, fiesta flowers have been moved to a different family - from Hydrophyllaceae (waterleaf family) to Boraginaceae (borage family). Calflora and all my flower books are now outdated. Erg. I'll try to go back and fix the labels for all my previous waterleaf posts.

3 comments:

TexWisGirl said...

They're lovely (and I appreciate you risking limbs to enter the poison oak). Such a beautiful color. :)

(Thanks for leaving a comment yesterday! :))

Jeannette said...

You have validated my lazy informal appreciation.
Will you make reference notes in your flower books?

Katie (Nature ID) said...

Funny, you should mention the notes in books, Jeannette. Actually, I've been having a hard time writing notes in my books, b/c most of my new ones have such glossy pages that pencil and pen either don't stick or smear. I borrowed some older bird books from a friend and have been laughing and enjoying all her hand-written notes in the margins.