Thanks to Dale from California aka Dfunk@Flickr, you and I get to enjoy this image of Calamagrostis nutkaensis from Crocker Grove in California. Dale shared the image through the Botany Photo of the Day Flickr Group Pool; you can see the original image here if you are interested in a larger version. You might also like to check out Dale's other photograph of Crocker Grove.

As I was researching Pacific reedgrass, I came across two issues of Botanical Electronic News on the subject of the European “discoverer” of this plant, Tadeáš Haenke (it was certainly known to the native peoples of the region). By coincidence (a 4 in 1461 chance!), Haenke's date of birth is the same day as this entry, December 5. I highly encourage you to read both BEN 287 and BEN 288 for fascinating accounts of this Bohemian-born botanist. Frankly, his tale would make a good movie. He was born in Bohemia, trained by a Dutch botanist, permitted to be part of a Spanish expedition to explore the Pacific by an Austrian emperor, travelled as far north as northern British Columbia and died in South America. The next time you feel inconvenienced from missing a flight or connection, keep in mind that Haenke missed the two expedition boats he was supposed to be on – twice. Indeed, he missed the expedition boats when they left from Spain, by only a few hours! He finally caught up with the expedition eight months after it had left Spain. The written accounts from BEN also go into intriguing detail about the Malaspina Expedition and the fate of Haenke's plant collections.

You can also learn more about Calamagrostis nutkaensis from Calflora and the online version of the Jepson Manual.

Photography resource link: Biofoto – Forening For Naturfotografer is in Norwegian, but the gallery of photographs for your inspiration isn't restricted by language. I particularly like the images by Einar Ytrelid on page 4.

Updated February 24, 2006 at 2:17pm PST: Changed name from Chrysothamnus nauseosus to Ericameria nauseosa after reviewing Nesom, G and Baird, G. 1993. Completion of Ericameria (Asteraceae: Astereae), Diminution of Chrysothamnus. Phytologia. 75(1): 74-93. – Daniel

Today's photograph is courtesy of Maureen from Montana, aka MontanaRaven@Flickr, who shared it via the Botany Photo of the Day Flickr Group Pool (Flickr posting). Maureen also shares her thoughts and photographs on her excellent weblog, raven's nest, which is certainly worth your time to investigate. Many thanks, Maureen!

Rabbitbrush was previously featured on BPotD in this entry. I enjoy Maureen's photograph as a companion to the images from that entry, particularly because the colours are tonally opposite. In accompaniment to the photograph, Maureen wrote: “these are the seedheads that persist throughout the winter, giving this low growing shrub a fluffy, cloudlike character that adds winter interest.”

Photography resource link: A Great Mouth for a Picture, an opinion piece by Niall Benvie for Nature Photographers Online. “Perhaps the single most important attribute of a “fine nature photograph” is its ability to engage the viewer’s intellect as well as their heart, to lead them into lines of enquiry about what is happening beyond the frame.”

Apologies for the brief writeup today. I'm still winding down from last night's presentation, which was seemingly well-received.

This particular plant was featured on Botany Photo of the Day nearly six months ago: Magnolia sieboldii. In that entry, I mention that the flowers of Oyama magnolia are pendulous. I hope it's clear that the branch suspending this flower has been manipulated to display the flower in an unnatural position.

Botany resource link: Millenium Seed Bank Project – “...an international collaborative plant conservation initiative. This worldwide effort aims to safeguard 24,000 plant species from around the globe against extinction.” The gallery of seed images has been done with aesthetics in mind. Check out Afzelia africana and Acacia cyclops.

Please note that the Creative Commons license applied to most BPotD images does not apply to this image, so permission for use (beyond “fair use” or similar provisions) needs to be sought from the copyright holder.

This scan of the Jacqueline du Pré rose is a creation of local photographer and writer Alex Waterhouse-Hayward (disclosure: Alex is the husband of one of UBC's Friends of the Garden). Alex has an upcoming exhibit in Vancouver that will include a number of super high-quality prints of his botanical scans, which he wrote about in “Getting Rid of the Box” (image gallery).

Alex writes that his methods to achieve the scan are as follows: “I placed it on my Epson Perfection 1640SU flatbed scanner. The initial scans are at 100% and 1200ppi. I have a green garden bamboo stick clamped to a lamp on my desk and I clamp (clothespins) the rose on the other end. I swing the rose so it is as close to the scanner's glass without touching. I do the scanning in the evening as I have the scanner's top off. This way the scanner reads my white ceiling as black.”

If you'd like to see these and Alex's other works, he's passed along an open invitation to attend his exhibition (with a note warning that there will be some artistic nudity). Here are the details: “Exactly As We Were” – photographs by Alex Waterhouse-Hayward. Artist's reception on December 8 at 7pm, exhibition from December 9 through to December 24, 2005. Location: Vancouver Gallery of Photography @ The Art Center, 2060 Pine Street, Vancouver, BC. 604.731.5412.

You may have noticed that I've titled the entry Rosa 'Harwanna', yet also called it the Jacqueline du Pré rose (this is the name Alex used for it). In what can only be described as something analogous to a tragedy of the commons, this rose has three “names”: scientific (Rosa 'Harwanna'), common or vernacular ('Harwanna' rose), and a marketing or trademarked name (Jacqueline du Pré rose).

In brief (far too brief), when a new plant is bred, it can be patented so that royalties are paid to the plant breeder. However, patents eventually expire, and once they do, royalties no longer need to be paid and anyone can propagate the plant for sale. In response, some nurseries came up with the idea of assigning a trademark to the new plant, essentially a name that only they could associate (or license to others to use) with the plant for marketing purposes. As long as it is protected from becoming a generic name, this marketing name is permanent, and enables the nursery (and its licensees) to sell the plant under an attractive name, (such as Jacqueline du Pré rose) while everyone else (once the patent has expired) has to sell the plant under the less attractive 'Harwanna' rose or Rosa 'Harwanna'.

This is akin to the tragedy of the commons scenario, so to rewrite what is on the Wikipedia entry:

Positive : the owner of the trademark receives all of the proceeds from each additional trademarked name
Negative : the understanding and communication of “what plant is that?” is slightly degraded by each additional name

Crucially, the division of these components is unequal: the individual owner of the trademark gains all of the advantage, but the disadvantage is shared between all people using names to communicate about plants. Consequently, for an individual owner of a trademark weighing up these utilities, the rational course of action is to trademark the new plant. And another, and another. However, since all potential trademark owners reach the same conclusion, confusion and misunderstanding and frustration about names is the long-term fate. Nonetheless, the rational response for a potential owner of a trademark remains the same for each new hybrid, since the gain is always greater to a trademark owner than the distributed cost is.

Tony Avent, owner of Plant Delights Nursery, has written an opinionated piece on the matter entitled, “The Trademark Myth (When is a Name Not a Name)”, which is a highly recommended (and entertaining) read. And yes, I agree with Tony.

Photography resource link: for inspiration, the photography of Wynn Bullock (page 2). Please be forewarned that the site contains artistic nudity.

If I were ever forced to create a list of favourite photographs, “Sea Palms” would be on it, though the small size of the image on the site doesn't do it justice. It's worth seeking out a print version in a book to get a better idea of it, such as Bullock's “The Enchanted Landscape”. I have the book, and to get an idea of Bullock's philosophy, he accompanied “Sea Palms” with this quote: “I feel the time of a thing just as strongly as I see its form or color. Equally, the spaces between the limbs of a tree are as real as the limbs themselves. When I can photograph spaces filled with smoke, fog, or mist, the effect is one that greatly adds to the visual and emotional impact of the picture. The photographer is slowly becoming aware of, and more and more will extend, his search for greater visual expression in a reality that is not frozen in time or limited to the surface appearance of objects.”

Just like yesterday's plant, I can't help myself when I see this plant. I have to touch it. The sensation, though, is quite different – imagine (but I don't suggest you try it) pushing down with your hand on a swath of keys on your keyboard. That would be very similar to the feeling of pushing down on the foliage of the plastic-like Bolax gummifera. The common name for this cushion-forming oddity is “balsam bog”, but I know a few members of staff simply call it the plastic plant.

Bolax gummifera is a member of the carrot family, but similar to yesterday's Erinacea anthyllis, a casual glance at the plant would not make it readily identifiable to its family. Within the broadly distributed Apiaceae (though typically north temperate), this plant belongs to a subfamily found only in the Southern Hemisphere, the Azorelloideae. Accordingly, Bolax gummifera is native to southern South America, including the Falkland Islands.

From an ecological standpoint, a recent study by L. Cavieres et. al. (2002) found evidence that cushion plants such as Bolax gummifera provide a “nurse plant effect” in arctic and alpine plant environments. The morphological structure of the cushions create a favourable microtopographic and microclimatic environment for the seed establishment of other plant species (see: Cavieres, L.et. al. 2002. Nurse effect of Bolax gummifera cushion plants in the alpine vegetation of the Chilean Patagonian Andes. Journal of Vegetation Science. 13(4):547-554.).

Botany / agriculture resource link: Gernot Katzer's Spice Pages – top-notch information on 117 spice plants.

You might have difficulty believing that prickly anthyllis or hedgehog broom is a member of the bean family until you see an image of its flowers. Erinacea anthyllis is native to stony slopes of Mediterranean France, Spain and northern Africa. When giving a tour, I always invite visitors to gently touch the viciously sharp spiny modified leaves. I can never resist the temptation to float my hand on the tips, since it's a bit of an odd tactile sensation.

Botany / photography resource link: Biodiversity of the Hengduan Mountains Region, China, a site hosted by the Harvard University Herbaria and originally assembled by Dr. Richard Ree. Rick spent a year in 2002-2003 at the UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research as a post-doctoral researcher with the garden's director, Dr. Quentin Cronk.

Palmer's century plant is native to northwestern Mexico, Arizona and New Mexico. Despite the common name, it only has a lifespan between five and twenty-five years. In its final year, it will produce a flower stalk from 4.5m (14 feet) to 9m (27 feet) high. After flowering and during the development of the seeds, the plant begins to senesce. In other words, fruit are produced only once in its lifetime, a botanical phenomenon termed monocarpy.

The Plant Sciences Center of Sierra Vista, Arizona has an interesting write-up about Agave palmeri, with a focus on salvage, reclamation and restoration. The site also alludes to the importance of Agave palmeri as a food source for migratory bats. In “Following the Nectar Trail”, Dr. Theodore Fleming writes about the relationships between lesser long-nosed bats (Leptonycteris curasoae) and plants in the Cactaceae and Agavaceae, including Agave palmeri.

In BPotD news: it isn't entirely bug-free yet, but I'm working on this for those of you who would like to know where the photographs were taken (and where the plants are)...

Photography / art resource link: “Catching The Eye”, an article by Robert Genn on “Photo Familiarity Syndrome”, photography and painting. If you're a photographer and easily offended, steer clear. But, if you enjoy learning about different perspectives on photography, the article and most of the accompanying comments are well worthwhile.

Guest-blogging today is one of my colleagues, Eric La Fountaine. Eric's been responsible for the scanning of the seeds and John Davidson slides that have been shared to date on BPotD (along with many other tasks). – Daniel

You might not recognize the seeds in this image as a common food source – rice. Oryza sativa is a staple part of the diet of almost fifty percent of the world’s human population. Needless to say, understanding the genetics of rice is crucial to understanding and protecting this valuable resource.

Rice is a cultigen, a “species” that is the result of human hybridization and selection, i.e., Oryza sativa did not exist prior to human intervention. General consensus is that the wild progenitor of Oryza sativa is Oryza rufipogon (see: history of rice cultivation), though some scientists disagree (read the subsection on botany and origin of rice).

Botany resource link: The Saxifrage Society has an excellent site dedicated to the genus Saxifraga and relatives. The highlight is their database, Saxbase, which you can use to browse through (great) images of many of the plants.

The last time I took a photograph of this hornbeam maple, I was jokingly criticized for not taking a picture of its leaf, one of most distinctive features of this species. As you can tell, this maple's leaf is not the typical palmately lobed leaf of many maples, but rather a pinnately-veined simple leaf, much like those seen (as a relevant example) in the genus Carpinus. I was mindful this time to take a photo of both the specimen and the leaf, so that I could use the leaf photograph to make the online copy of the text for the interpretative sign a bit more relevant.

For a few more photographs of non-palmately lobed maple leaves, see Botanical Characters of Maples via The Maple.

Photography / nature resource link: The Flora and Fauna of the Paraguayan Gran Chaco from the talents of Thomas and Sabine Vinke. Beautiful (and exotic, to me) subjects combined with an eye for composition make every page on this site worthwhile to visit (don't miss out the amphibian page). As a related aside, one of the things I find most deeply satisfying is when the garden's discussion forums are used by people around the world to puzzle over something botanical and come to an educated conclusion. Check out this lichen identification conversation that involved Thomas & Sabine from Paraguay and folks from British Columbia, California, Colorado and Washington. Made my day.

Nick from Fort St. John, British Columbia, sent in this photograph of a prairie crocus (or pasqueflower) taken in the Peace River region in the early spring. After reading about BPotD in the National Post, Nick was inspired to send this little gem along to be identified and shared. I was quite happy to oblige, as its scientific name was one of the first I had ever learned. Many thanks, Nick!

I suppose I should have held onto this photograph (since I don't have one of my own for this species) until March 16, 2006. That day is the one-hundredth anniversary of this plant receiving Royal Assent to be adopted as the floral emblem of Manitoba, after having been selected by school children of the province. After the blizzards of last week, though, I think Manitoba readers might appreciate this harbinger of spring as a reminder that winter will ultimately pass.

If you search for more information on this plant, you ought to be aware that it has a number of scientific names (synonyms). Of these, the one used most often as an alternative is Pulsatilla patens subsp. multifida, a taxonomic view which places this plant in a different genus in part due to the long plumose achene beaks seen when the plant is in fruit. Phylogenetic analyses, however, suggest that Pulsatilla should be subsumed into Anemone. For a discussion on the topic, see the entry on the genus Anemone in the Flora of North America (you can also read more about Anemone patens var. multifida in the FNA).

Nature resource link: It might seem a bit odd, but I'm going to link to an earlier BPotD. Picea sitchensis 'Bentham's Sunlight' was originally written to coincide with the release of John Vaillant's book “The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed” (ISBN: 0393058875). Two weeks ago, the book received the 2005 Governor General's Literary Award for Non-Fiction. If you haven't read the original post and accompanying resources (and the book), it's a fascinating story with a UBC Botanical Garden connection.

Like all nerines (including Nerine bodwenii), Nerine pudica is native (and endemic) to South Africa. Floristically speaking, Nerine pudica is found within the bounds of the Cape Floristic Region, a biodiversity hotspot. There, it is one of roughly nine thousand species of plants that occur in an area one-third the size of the United Kingdom. For comparison's sake, the entire UK flora contains roughly fifteen hundred species of plants (source: Calflora.net's Flora of the Western Cape).

There are between twenty-three and thirty species of Nerine; you can read a brief account of why there is not a firm number here.

Photography resource link: The Art of Disconnection, an article by Niall Benvie on Nature Photographers Online. The piece starts out with a discussion on the recognition (or lack thereof) of the artistic merit of nature photography and ends with a commentary on the decline of natural history in education. I'll let you decide if the transition between the two points is a smooth one.

Updated November 21, 2005 at 12:09pm: Changed the common name based on Maire's comment below – thanks, Maire! Also, read Brent Hine's comments below re: the name discussion from the entry.

Commonly called “bidibid” or “piripiri” by New Zealanders, the species Acaena magellanica is native to both New Zealand and Patagonia. This particular plant is labelled as variety laevigata in the Australasian section of the Alpine Garden. This warrants some investigation, as I think that variety laevigata is strictly South American (so either the label is incorrect, the identification is wrong or the plant's been in the wrong bed for a long time – since 1983!) .

I thought I discovered the perfect paper to supplement this entry: Lee et al., 2001. Fruit features in relation to the ecology and distribution of Acaena (Rosaceae) species in New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Ecology 25(1): 17–27 (or direct link to the PDF article). As it turns out, they don't cover two of New Zealand's nineteen species of Acaena in the article, and Acaena magellanica is one of them. Still, it's worth investigating. Keep in mind while reading it that this Acaena is in the Section Ancistrum, or “spined fruits with barbs” section – I suspect similar conclusions can be drawn about Acaena magellanica as are drawn about other species in the same section.

Botany resource link: Adaptations and economic uses of rainforest plants via the Missouri Botanical Garden.

The genus Daphyniphyllum occurs only in southeast Asia, and remains uncommon enough in horticulture that no common name has been settled upon (although Dave Creech of the SFA Mast Arboretum suggests false daphne). An uncritical glance at the plant would suggest that it is either a rhododendron or closely related, but despite similarities in superficial morphology such as habit and leaf shape, it is not even in the same order of plants. Orders are a level above families, so to compare Rhododendron and Daphniphyllum: Rhododendron is in the family Ericaceae, one of a number of families in the Order Ericales, while Daphniphyllum is in the family Daphniphyllaceae, a member of the Order Saxifragales. With this knowledge, you can draw the conclusion that even though they are still distantly related (different families), Daphniphyllum is more closely related to saxifrages (Saxifraga) than it is to rhododendrons.

Photography resource link: With A New Eye – The Digital National Parks Project by pioneering digital photographer Stephen Johnson. Although the web images are small (though they give you a taste), I can only imagine that the prints are stunning; Stephen uses a 144 megapixel BetterLight Model 6000K.

Although November is probably the nadir for plants in bloom within UBC Botanical Garden, flowers aren't entirely absent. Between the collections in the Winter Garden and the Alpine Garden in particular, there are easily over a hundred different species in flower, including this plant from southeastern Australia, the royal grevillea.

This individual plant was propagated from a successful larger plant (photographed here), which has since been removed for being too successful. I think that's the reason, anyway – maybe Brent Hine will chime in on the comments.

Grevillea victoriae attracts both hummingbirds and bees as pollinators, similar to another member from the family Proteaceae featured previously on BPotD, the South American Embothrium coccineum. Whenever you see members of the same plant family having representatives in both South America and Australia, it should spark your biogeographical curiousity. Indeed, a further examination of the family reveals a distribution throughout the Southern Hemisphere, suggesting that the origins of the family date back to the time (and place) of the Gondwana supercontinent roughly 130 million years ago. This assertion is bolstered by the fact that molecular and fossil evidence combined suggest an origin 119 to 110 mya (Anderson, C.L., Bremer, K., & Friis, E.M. 2005. Dating phylogenetically basal eudicots using rbcL sequences and multiple fossil reference points. American J. Bot. 92: 1737-1748. + abstract).

Botany / conservation resource link: The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources has started a Top 50 Plants Campaign, a series highlighting plant species of concern in various regions around the world. The first in the series focuses on the Top 50 Mediterranean Island Plants. “Written in simple, non-technical language, these profiles should interest policy makers, the media and general public. Each profile, illustrated with a photograph or drawing, includes a description of the plant as well as information on conservation status, distribution, habitat and ecology, economic and cultural value, threats, reasons for decline, conservation actions in place, and actions needed to help save the species.” Discovered via the always-excellent Scott's Botanical Links.

A warm welcome today to readers of one of Canada's national daily newspapers, the National Post. For those who don't have access to the newspaper, you can read today's article (minus the photographs) about Botany Photo of the Day here: “In Science, Beauty. In Beauty, Science.”

For those investigating the site after reading the paper, I'll add links to the rest of the BPotD entries featured in the full-page article after seeing the paper copy, but here are a few for now: Linnaea borealis, Vitis vinifera 'Cabernet Franc' and Gladiolus flanaganii. You might also like to read the first BPotD entry Melliodendron xylocarpum, read a bit more about Botany Photo of the Day, check out the main page of the UBC Botanical Garden site, ask a question on the garden's discussion forums or, if you are a Mac OS 10.4 user, download the BPotD Widget. A word of note on commenting on BPotD entries – though comments are greatly appreciated, they are moderated to prevent spammers from polluting the site. I'll be pretty quick about approving comments today, though. Lastly, a minor correction to the last paragraph of the article: I chose this Lilium sp. as a flower picture for stress relief that day.

Today's plant is yet another award-winner for gardeners, 'Profusion' beautyberry (RHS Award of Garden Merit and a Great Plant Pick). For a gardening perspective on the plant, check out Paghat's article on beautyberry. Paghat mentions that the berries are not highly preferred by birds, which I agree is true for most years. However, in observing two different plantings of beautyberry at UBC in the past month, I've noted an atypical decrease in the number of fruit on the plants (atypical in the fact that it is so early). Attributable to birds? Perhaps – I was joined by a rufous-sided towhee feeding on the fruit while taking photographs of this plant yesterday, which was a bit odd considering the amount of its typically preferred food available.

The genus Callicarpa is distributed in Central America, the southeastern United States, tropical and subtropical Asia and northern Australia. The beautyberry found in the southeastern US, Callicarpa americana, is a candidate plant for UBC Botanical Garden's new Carolinian Forest garden (mentioned in brief here). Many of the plants planned for the Carolinian Forest have relatives in the flora of southeast Asia, a biogeographical pattern observed in roughly sixty-five different genera of plants that has long been recognized and studied. Indeed, this pattern is one of the research and educational rationales for the Carolinian Forest, particularly for the UBC biologists examining the evolutionary relationships between these plants. If you have institutional or library access to scientific journal articles, a good introduction to the subject is Wen, J. 1999. Evolution of Eastern Asian and Eastern North American Disjunct Distributions in Flowering Plants. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 30:421-455.

Conservation / philosophy resource link: Two resources on Dr. E.O. Wilson, noted biologist and author, both touching on the idea of reuniting science and the humanities: the first is a filmed lecture from Harvard University, “On the Relation of Science and the Humanities”, and the second is an interview in Salon, “Living in Shimmering Disequilibrium”.