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Fawn lily (Erythronium hendersonii)<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
The other week, I went with one of the botanists to tour a meadow where a local organization had conducted controlled burns in a previous year. The organization wanted to show us how the burns had helped to control the invasion of species like Taeniatherum caput-medusae<\/i>, Poa bulbosa<\/i>, and Centaurea solstitialis. <\/i>They had also repopulated the area with native plant seeds, so the entire meadow was pretty much an explosion of white popcorn flowers, pink plectitis, and blue lupines.<\/p>\n The meadow was packed with flowers!<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n Shortspur seablush (Plectitis congesta<\/em>)<\/p><\/div>\n Lately, I\u2019ve been spending a lot of time conducting surveys for Fritillaria gentneri<\/i>, an endangered species of lily that is endemic to southwest Oregon. Gentner\u2019s fritillary is pretty fascinating; from what I\u2019ve heard, a lot of people suspect that the species is a hybrid between Fritillaria recurva<\/i> (scarlet fritillary) and Fritillaria affinis <\/i>(checker lily). Most of the time, the species reproduces asexually through its bulbs. It tends to prefer meadows and very open oak woodlands. A lot of work is being done by the folks up at OSU to analyze certain genetic factors (for instance–is it a hybrid or an individual species?) as well as to grow seedlings that are being used to repopulate certain areas. Most often, the plant will only display bulb leaves, but since the leaves tend to look exactly like those of other fritillaries it can\u2019t be identified that way. However, on the scarce occasion that the plant produces a flower, Gentner\u2019s fritillary can be distinguished from F. recurva<\/i> and F. affinis <\/i>in these ways:<\/p>\n Color: Not a great way to tell them apart, since the colors are arbitrary and usually unreliable. However, in general, F. recurva<\/i> tends to be a bright scarlet color, F. gentneri<\/i> tends to be a sort of dark red\/maroon, and F. affinis<\/i> tends to be purple-brown and yellow speckled. Gentner\u2019s fritillary sometimes grows a sort of almost-scarlet color, though, and can often be mistaken for F. recurva<\/i> if identified solely by color.<\/p>\n Flower shape: F. recurva<\/i> has (as the name implies) petals that are recurved at the tips, and F. affinis<\/i> has wider set flowers with non-recurved tips. F. gentneri<\/i> usually has non-recurved tips, similar to F. affinis<\/i>, but can sometimes have slightly\/partially curved petals that can be mistaken for F. recurva<\/i>.<\/p>\n Style\/nectaries: The best way to distinguish between the three species is based on their styles and nectary glands. F. affinis<\/i> has a style that is strongly divided (for at least half its length), as well as a nectary gland that is \u00be the length of its petals. F. recurva<\/i>\u2019s style is the least divided, usually \u00bc to \u2153 its length, and its gland is less than \u00bd the length of the petals. F. gentneri<\/i> is an intermediate of the two; its style is divided around \u2153 to \u00bd its length, and its gland is \u2153 to \u00bd the length of its petals.<\/p>\n Fritillaria gentneri<\/em> (Gentner’s fritillary)<\/p><\/div>\n Fritillaria affinis<\/em> the most easily distinguished due to its yellow and brown color.<\/p><\/div>\n Fritillaria recurva<\/em> (note the scarlet color and recurved leaves)<\/p><\/div>\n All in all– it\u2019s fairly easy to distinguish F. affinis <\/i>by its color and shape, but recurva <\/i>and gentneri <\/i>can get a little dicey, so it\u2019s best to identify based on styles\/nectaries.<\/p>\n On another note– over the past week, I\u2019ve been spending some time working on keeping an invading population of shiny geranium (Geranium lucidum<\/i>) away from an OHV trail. The population has pretty much taken over the understory; at this point, the main priority is to prevent the plant from being carried to other places. As such, my supervisor and I have been using weed torches (yes, he trusted me with fire) to wilt the geranium within 15 feet of the trail in an effort to prevent the plants nearest the trail from seeding so bikes\/ATVs\/etc. can\u2019t carry the seeds to other locations. Overall, I like wielding a weed torch. It\u2019s kind of fun. Is that bad?<\/p>\n On my way to burn some noxious weeds…<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n Until next time,<\/p>\n Aleah<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wow, has a month already gone by?! Temperatures have started to warm up over the past couple of weeks, and so field season has officially begun. Since my last post, the early spring wildflowers have begun to display their wonderful … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dev-clm-blog.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/IMG_2141-e1524150122552-600x337.jpg\")
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