Over the next few days, I'll be sharing some photographs from Thursday evening's presentation on Orobanchaceae (the broomrape family). I've been hearing a few comments that even if a long write-up isn't possible, simply sharing an image is okay, so let's try that.

Orobanche corymbosa or flat-top broomrape, is native to western North America (including British Columbia), where it is frequently a parasite on members of the Asteraceae or sunflower family. In particular, these achlorophyllous plants often grow in association with big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata).

Unfortunately, it is another busy week for me, so only a short entry today. Thank you to mossgreen2011@Flickr aka Michael McNaughton for sharing this photograph from June 2010 (Botany Photo of the Day Flickr Pool | original image). It's appreciated.

The Calypso orchid has previously been featured on BPotD: Calypso bulbosa from May 2, 2005 and Calypso bulbosa from May 23, 2005. Like the species of Leontochir featured in the previous BPotD entry, it is monotypic (the only species in the genus).

Another first-time BPotD contributor today, Huenchecal.@Flickr, who is associated with the exceptional Chilebosque site about the native flora of Chile. Today's photograph was shared via the Botany Photo of the Day Flickr Pool (original image). Thank you!

Garra de león, or lion's claw, is endemic to Chile, where it is restricted to the coastal zone of the Atacama Desert. Photographed here in Llanos de Challe National Park, protection for the species seems necessary; it is considered endangered (PDF), though it doesn't seem to be formally recognized as such yet (it doesn't appear on the IUCN Red List, as an example). One of the reported threats is introduced goats: Leontochir ovallei via the Pacific Bulb Society Wiki.

Leontochir is a monotypic genus (it contains only the one species). Phillippi named it Leontochir in 1873 as a Greek translation of its Chilean common name. Like most other members of its subfamily (the Alstroemerieae), the species is a geophyte (it has fleshy underground storage organs). In the wild, the species flowers in October and November.

Additional photographs of this species are available from Arkive.org: Leontochir ovallei (including some by other occasional BPotD contributors).

While planning a group trip to the Carolinas and area for this spring, I've been revisiting some of my photographs from last year. This is a tentative identification for the subject fern in this image. If someone wants to assert that it is instead a species of Athyrium from the area (see A Natural History of Pearson's Falls and Some of Its Human Associations for a species list), I could be swayed. Unfortunately, the foreground stream along with considerations for the rental car (wet shoes) and the property (Pearson's Falls) precluded a closer look.

Dryopteris marginalis is endemic to eastern North America, extending southwest from the southern tip of Greenland to Kansas and Oklahoma. According to the Flora of North America for Dryopteris marginalis, it is a species of "Rocky, wooded slopes and ravines, edges of woods, stream banks and roadbanks, and rock walls". It appears to me that this plant is periodically submerged by the stream during periods of high waterflow.

The etymology of the specific epithet is explained by HardyFernLibrary.com (Dryopteris marginalis): "Marginalis means margined, referring to the position of the sori". A photograph illustrating the location of these spore-producing receptacles on the frond is also available on that site, or on the Ferns and Fern Allies of Wisconsin: Dryopteris marginalis.

Here is another photograph from a favourite area of mine in California, taken on April 5, 2010 (the same day as this photograph). Instead of identifying the plants when photographing these areas, I tend to just spend my limited time behind the camera. Fortunately, others who have the opportunity to spend more time with the plants have added some documentation, so I think it is relatively reasonable to use resources like Nature Alley to assign some names.

The small yellow flower that dominates the image is certainly a Lasthenia, or goldfields, but I would feel very uncertain assigning it to species. The purple inflorescences belong to a Castilleja, probably Castilleja densiflora. Resources for the area suggest that the remaining white and yellow coloured blossom is almost certainly the broadly-distributed Layia platyglossa.

Thank you to first-time BPotD contributor, Bill HIgham@Flickr, who shared today's photograph with us via the Botany Photo of the Day Flickr Pool (original image). I'm always grateful when given the opportunity to feature something from a family not yet seen on Botany Photo of the Day.

Cunoniaceae, or the cunonia family, is primarily distributed in the temperate and tropical southern hemisphere. Bauera fits this distribution tidily, as the genus is endemic to southeastern Australia. A small genus of 3 or 4 species (depending on the reference), Bauera consists of short shrubs (<2m) which preferably grow in shady, cool and wet habitats. Checking our records here at UBC Botanical Garden, I notice that we had a plant of Bauera rubioides that was accessioned in 1982, but it was removed in 2002 as "deleted, year dead unknown" as part of an inventory. For us, it might be worth trying again, though we do have representation from other members of the family (i.e., Eucryphia spp.).

Multiple sources suggest that Bauera honours not one, but two individuals: Ferdinand Bauer and Franz Bauer, Austrian brothers famed for their botanical art. However, a few places suggest it only honours Ferdinand Bauer; Ferdinand was the one who did much botanical illustration work during early European exploration of Australia's coast.

Bauera rubioides, commonly known as madder-leaved bauera, wiry bauera, river rose or dog rose (illustration), is the most widely-distributed member of the genus, as it is found in Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales and South Australia. It has been grown in cultivation for centuries (in England since at least 1793, for example).

Attempt number two at an entry today--the first attempt had to be abandoned when I finally figured out that the plant had been mislabeled and/or misidentified. So, an email has been sent off to let the institution know...

On the topic of confusion, yellow trillium, yellow wakerobin or yellow toadshade has also been a puzzle for taxonomists, so much so that the Flora of North America entry for Trillium luteum states: "Botanists have been confused by Trillium luteum for a long time. Some, such as A. E. Radford et al. (1968), appear to regard it as a form of Trillium cuneatum, while others confuse it with Trillium viride, a more western species. Early botanists confused Trillium luteum with the occasional individual or very local larger population of pallid color forms of other species. Trillium cuneatum rather frequently produces green, yellowish green, or pale lemon yellow forms (but with a cuneate larger and wider petal) that mimic Trillium luteum. These forms, when growing with Trillium luteum, hybridize, leading to so many intergrades that many plants cannot be placed in either species with any confidence. For these reasons, almost no work older than J. D. Freeman's (1975) can be used reliably to plot distribution of Trillium luteum". The map in the Flora of North America shows a relatively restricted distribution in Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky and North Carolina. In the USDA PLANTS database, Trillium luteum is also shown to be present in Michigan and Ontario, where it is an introduced species.

Flowering in April and/or May, Trillium luteum is a species of "deciduous forests, thin open woods, rocky stream banks and flats, clearings and openings, old fields, [and] rich mature forest on calcareous substrate[s]". This perennial grows at elevations from 200m to 400m.

The Missouri Botanical Garden provides a profile on Trillium luteum for gardeners, while the Pacific Bulb Society provides additional images: trilliums.