Erythronium oregonum - California Fawn Lily

Erythronium californium is a herbaceous perennial bulb native to Northern California. I took these photos in Lake County where the highly scented flowers appear in full bloom at the end of February through March. numbering in the many thousands.

The bulbs, along with many other regional species, were an important food source for indigenous peoples. The bulb populations we see today are remnants of previously managed and far more extensive traditional food and land management systems.

The area depicted in these photos consists of semi-dense chaparral consisting primarily of Manzanita, Heteromeles, and Quercus (duration) along with Umbellaria californica, CThe Erythronium appears in profusion, as shown below, in the understory. The bulb seems to co-exist along side a healthy gopher population, which, reportedly, can aid in the dissemination of bulblets .

Other important genera of edible neophytes widely consumed in pre-contact California include Allium, Brodiaea, Camassia, Chlorogalum, Calochortus, Dichelostemma, Lilium, Lomatium, Perideridia, Sanicula, and Triteleia.

Calochortus luteus

Asclepias fascicularis - Narrow-leaf milkweed

Below are photos of the spectacular flower and thin leaf of Asclepias fascicularis, the narrow-leaf milkweed. This species, and others in its genus, is a specific monarch butterfly food and habitat plant. Planting milkweeds and helping to support their populations can aid in creating habitat for the dwindling populations of monarch butterfly.

Narrow-leaf milkweed flower and bud at varying stages.

Narrow leaf milkweed leaf and unopened flower (bud).

Plants Are Better at Complex Decision-Making Than We Ever Realized

We know that plants can learn, and make decisions, and we now have a new level of insight into the decision-making process plants go through when put under pressure, vying with competitors for limited access to sunlight.

It turns out that plants can adapt to the size and strength of their nearby neighbors, deciding how best to survive considering what's happening around them, according to a new study. Read the full paper Decision-making in plants under competition at Nature.com.

Abstract

Plants can plastically respond to light competition in three strategies, comprising vertical growth, which promotes competitive dominance; shade tolerance, which maximizes performance under shade; or lateral growth, which offers avoidance of competition. Here, we test the hypothesis that plants can ‘choose’ between these responses, according to their abilities to competitively overcome their neighbors. We study this hypothesis in the clonal plant Potentilla reptans using an experimental setup that simulates both the height and density of neighbors, thus presenting plants with different light-competition scenarios. Potentilla reptans exhibit the highest vertical growth under simulated short-dense neighbors, highest specific leaf area (leaf area/dry mass) under tall-dense neighbors, and tend to increase total stolon length under tall-sparse neighbors. These responses suggest shifts between ‘confrontational’ vertical growth, shade tolerance and lateral-avoidance, respectively, and provide evidence that plants adopt one of several alternative plastic responses in a way that optimally corresponds to prevailing light-competition scenarios.

Source: Nature.com