bitter root with concrete mite ~ 04/10/14 ~ Pinnacles

bitter root

Lewisia rediviva

Montiaceae (formerly  Portulacaceae)

This gorgeous little bitter root became a running joke, and our proclaimed goal for this hike.  Ken mentioned a while back that I should look for Lewisia at Pinnacles starting the first of April.  I misheard him, and every exchange thereafter became, "Lewisia.  lewisii?  No, Lewisia.  Clarkia lewisii?  No, Lewisia.  I don't think it's found at Pinnacles.  Yes, it is.  Lewis' clarkia?  No, not Clarkia, Lewisia.  It's related to miner's lettuce.  What?  Really?"  That's what you get when multiple plants were named after Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.  I would have heard and understood bitter root.  Sigh.  It's also the state flower of Montanta. 

I wasn't sure what to look for, but the CNPS folks kept their eyes peeled on the scree.  An extra jaunt down another trail, past the Indian warriors, led to success.  Its delicate, girly lilac color positively glows against the mottled, grey rock bits. 

concrete mite / spider mite

Balaustium sp.

Erythraeidae

Apparently, little red mites (not the velvet kind) have a thing for bitter root, or at least they do at Pinnacles.  I know very little about mites, except at their mention I tend to think of the Demodex in my forehead.  The split pairs of legs, with two pairs aimed forward and two pairs in back, make me reasonably confident of this ID.  The Balaustium mites are reported to be pollen feeders, which is strange because they're also known as predators and a sucking pest down in Australia.  That's a lot of scleritized mouth specialization for a tiny little animal.  How do they consume the pollen?  Suck on it? 

bitter root leaves

The leaves totally remind me of French green beans.  I held the leaves.  The ones with blooming flowers were actually floppy, which totally surprised me.  These here were still a bit bendy, not super turgid.

bitter root at another location without mites, plus a fly

On the way back down, we found another patch of Lewisia.  We must have overlooked it... but they glow!  These were on the other side of the trail, and the sun hit them differently.  Or, maybe they hadn't been blooming earlier in the day?

tufted poppy ~ 04/08/14 ~ Pinnacles

tufted poppy

Eschscholzia caespitosa

Papaveraceae

Now, these are not the famous California poppy (E. californica - I always have a hard time spelling Eschscholzia correctly).  The way I know is to look under the flower for a red ring.  If present, then CA poppy; if not, then good luck!  I already guessed these were tufted poppy, because that's just what they look like to me.  I'm not familiar with the miriad of other native poppies to know any differently. Maybe the folks in the Sierras are the ones that call this foothill poppy, but I've never heard that name actually used.  The tufted poppy is the one that gets everyone going gaga at Hite Cove near Yosemite.

As with the woodland star, I asked the CNPS folks 2 days later to confirm.  What I thought was an easy casual question ended up pulling out loupes and keys with a debate over whether it lacked hair.  Honestly, I couldn't follow the conversation, but I think they were trying to decide between tufted poppy and San Benito poppy (E. hypecoides), which is also on the latest Pinnacles plant list.  It's tufted.

Ed Ross advised me once that if given the choice between two flower photographs, always pick the one that has an insect on it.  He said it made it more interesting.  So, there's a bonus unidentified little beetle in the first photo above.  However, I'll admit I often pick pretty over practical.  I do like poppies of all sorts, including the fancy garden ones.  They're so cheery.  I forgive our natives for being yellow.

compare poppy hill with exactly 1 week later

dwarf checkerbloom ~ 06/02/11 ~ Fort Ord

dwarf checkerbloom
Sidalcea malviflora ssp. malviflora
Malvaceae

I'm basing this ID mostly on the CNPS plant list for Fort Ord. Many of the Sidalcea found in CA look very similar to me, especially the fringed checkerbloom (S. diploscypha).

And, yes, there are several beetles on the blooms in the second picture, but I'm not in the beetle IDing frame of mind right now. Can you ID the beetles?

coastal tarweed ~ 08/04/10 ~ Fort Ord

coastal tarweed
Deinandra corymbosa ssp. corymbosa (formerly Hemizonia corymbosa)
Asteraceae

posted 08/14/11 - Sometimes these yellow asters drive me nuts trying to identify. There's a bee and a beetle on the flowers shown above. Maybe I'll swing back around and try to identify them at some point. Do you know what they are?