cfa 的最愛

On Dalea frutescens. Flowers smelled very pleasant/sweet. Sweat bees and this blue stopped by to pollinate while I was here.

The species is dioecious so all flowers are unisexual. The flowers lack petals. The perianth is a spiral of sepals. Male and female flowers arrange their sex organs on a unisexual column (like unisexual orchids in the genus Catasetum). In both flowers the central column terminates in a fleshy disc I presume would be called a compitum. In female flowers the receptive, stigmatic papillae ar arranged under the compitum on the surface of the style. In male flowers the column is a pistilode also with a fleshy compitum. Sessile anthers re fused to the pistilode style.

I found these at the back of San Marcos outlet mall!
We bought our truck from San Macros car dealer during the pandemic. My truck needed an oil change that's why we went to San Macros today. The car dealer dropped us off at the outlet mall. Since we have a dog, that's why we decided to see what's growing at the back of shopping mall.
There are hundreds of them!

I returned to this site, an alkali wetland in Fish Slough yesterday (6/13/2023) to collect and photograph this enigmatic Carex. I collected a number of sheets and will be distributing them to others as suggested by Barbara Wilson. It is defenitely trigonous, short rhizomatous, glabrous throughout, perigynia about 3mm long with a short 0.5mm beak, teeth about 0,3 to 0.4 mm long. It keys to nothing (closest thing C. viridula) in TJM2. It keys to C. parryana in IMF, Apparently C. parryana var. brevisquama is a homotypic synonym for C. holmgreniorum. Thus I concur with Reznicek via Barbara Wilson over my earlier observation of this plant.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/106526060

This tree species is both cultivated and naturalized here. The first ten photos are of a cultivated individual, and the remaining nine photos are of young, naturalized individuals. The leaves in the fifth photo, of leaves side-by-side, were collected from a single 2-foot length of twig. Photos 11-12 are of a young tree that had fairly normal leaves, then got cut down and thereafter resprouted, making sharply lobed leaves typical for this species when regenerating from severe damage. Photos 13-17 are of saplings only a few years old.

The leaf shape variation is pretty extreme in this species.

What appears to be tiny plants with tiny red blooms growing in water in a rock drainage basin near Inks Lake. The second photo with a wide view has several fallen live oak leaves for scale. The small pond was about 3 or 4 feet long and maybe an inch or two deep.

First image female flower. Second image male. 5th & 6th image female Plants dioecious and abundant at this location. Nearly 60% of hosts (Dalea frutescens) infected.

Re: flower morphology:
The species is dioecious so all flowers are unisexual. The flowers lack petals. The perianth is a spiral of sepals. Male and female flowers arrange their sex organs on a unisexual column (like unisexual orchids in the genus Catasetum). In both flowers the central column terminates in a fleshy disc I presume would be called a compitum. In female flowers the receptive, stigmatic papillae ar arranged under the compitum on the surface of the style. In male flowers the column is a pistilode also with a fleshy compitum. Sessile anthers re fused to the pistilode style. That's the best I can do at short notice. Have you seen the attached? I think the illustration is quite clear. How many stamens can you count attached to the pistilode neck?

This is the same Trillium plant discovered the previous year in the exact same spot.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/21600308
Remarkably, the same rootstock was still alive 35 years later when we revisited the location:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/21503136
This tract would later become part of the Balcones Canyonlands Preserves (Bunten tract).
Date in mid-March is estimated from context of slide roll.
Scanned from 35mm Ektachrome slide.

Here are some of my original photos of the Travis County Trillium plant. I first discovered the plant on March 22, 1984 (first two images). I came back to measure the plant on March 24 (3rd - 5th images), and over the next few days invited several botanists and friends to view and photograph the plant. The 6th image (3/25/84) shows Dr. Marshall Johnston documenting the plant. The 7th image shows a young and curious Greg Lasley wondering what all the fuss is about.

Syntrichia pagorum (Milde) J. J. Amann, placed under synonymy with S. laevipila in FNA Vol. 27, though they are likely distinct.

Excurrent costa as hyaline tips/awns, multiple papillae on both surfaces, notably gemmiferous.

Abundant on the bark of Quercus fusiformis with Orthotrichum sp., same colony as: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/40052921