Plant of the day is: Pellaea glabella or smooth cliffbrake

Plant of the day is: Pellaea glabella or smooth cliffbrake

I'm looking at a spreadsheet of 76 species of ferns and thinking to myself "Whew!  That's a lot of ferns!"  Starting to dig into some of these in hopes of collecting spore and really learning the states ferns species better.

Taxonomy, etc.:   I believe I've actually written about this species or P. atropurpurea slightly before the days of the blogger account when these were just Facebook ramblings.  A long ago noticed plant that I keyed out was P. atropurpurea which I ran into at West Tyson park.  Pellaea is a genus of about 60 accepted species that is in the Pteridaceae family.  Pteris is actually the type genus for the family, not Pteridium which is actually in the Dennstaedtiaceae family.  Not sure I'll ever be able to spell that without looking.  Worth noting that Pteridium WAS described by Linnaeus initially as Pteris.  But I digress, more than a bit.  If you subscribe to the molecular phylogenetic approach towards classification (which I do), there are five subfamiles in Pteridaceae.  Pellaea fall within the Cheilanthoideae which are described as primarily epipetric in semiarid habitats.  

Pellaea glabella ssp. simplex (smooth cliffbrake) by Tab Tannery CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Description:  Typically noted for it's sessile pinnae and very smooth (not hairy or scaly) stipes.  The stipe is the stem underneath the blade which is called the rachis when the blade starts.  Don't look at me, I didn't make these things up.  Some of the Pellaea subspecies DO have hairlike scales near the midrib, if you ever want to get REALLY into your fern ID.  I know you do.  Pinnae are linnear to ovate-lanceolate for a botanical discription.  Me, I think they look a little bit like Santoku knives.  In the pictures here I love how you can see differences in pinnae sizes between the different subspecies.  Cool stuff.  Anyways, on the fertile segments of the pinnules (where you'll find the spores) the margins (edges) are recurved QUITE noticeably to kind of shelter and protect the spores.  I'll have to look for that, here is a cool picture of it.  Lastly, the stems are very dark brown to purple and the pinnules are actually wintergreen.  

All in all this is a fairly easy fern to spot if you keep your eyes on the rocks.  Fairly common, and the main difference between this and P. atropurpurea is the hairy stipe.  Go out a hunting and take some good pictures!

          Pellaea glabella at Emmenegger Park, Kirkwood by Anne McCormack CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

  

Had to go EXTRA large on this image to really show it off.  Taken but a couple miles from my front door.  Pretty nifty really.

Habitat:  Rocks.  Just about everywhere in the United States and Canada excepting California and Oregon as well as the Southeast.  

Culture:  Epipetric?  Found growing on rocks.  Also described as epilithic or a lithophyte.  It is found on more exposed sites than P. atropurpurea.  Think of it as the Les Stroud to Bear Grylls in terms of ferns.  Frequently found on limestone but I'm not sure its an absolute requirement.  If you wanted this in a native home garden your best bet would likely being sowing spores with a little pinch of soil in rock features.  In cultivation...well...that could be tricky.  Tufa may be a decent option or extremely rocky limestone mixes.  I'm not sure if the establishment phase of the prothallia can handle higher moisture/peat environments or not.  I'll get into prothallia some other night. 

Pellaea glabella ssp. occidentalis (western dwarf cliffbrake) by Tab Tannery CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Plant of the day is: Medinilla succulenta

Plant of the day is: Medinilla succulenta

This is a genus that I ran across recently as there are a few species at the Missouri Botanical Gardens.  If you go hunting, you can find M. magnifica, M. scortechinii, M. cummingii, and M. myriantha in the Climatron for the first two and in the Kemper Center for Home Gardening Building for the second two.  REALLY worth hunting down for a look, especially if you can catch them in flower, they have a fantastic inflorescence.  

Taxonomy, etc.:  This particular species is a bit difficult to find information on, so bear with me.  Firstly, there are no commons images available so the featured images highlight a few other species of the genus.  Medinilla is a member of the Melastomataceae family which contains another neat looking plant I've recently growth called Osbeckia chinensis (also with showy pink flowers).  I've also been lucky enough to collect some wild Rhexia here in Missouri.  Otherwise there are about 197 genera that I've largely never heard of, some work to do in that family.  Melistomes, as they say, have opposite decussate leaves.  Don't worry, I had to look it up.  Decussate means shaped like an X or intersecting to form an X.  Flowers are perfect (which means it has stamens and carpels) and borne singly as in Osbeckia or in a paniculate cyme like the pictured Medinilla here. For the downright absurdly nerdy, the seven genera of Memcylaceae have been merged into Melastomaceae.  Fascinating.  Truly fascinating.  

Only around 70 ACCEPTED species according to the plant list.  This species is actually listed as unresolved but that doesn't mean it is not a species.  I can't really find a reference in theplantlist.org OR tropicos for other synonyms so this plant is ....yeah ...tough.

Genus named by Carl Ludwig von Blume, a German - Dutch botanist who worked at the Rijksherbarium at Leiden.  Say that five times fast.  Dare ya.

"Melastomataceae - Medinilla speciosa-2" by Hectonichus CC BY-SA 3.0

Description: M. succulenta is a rare, small, compact shrub from Indonesia.  It has lime-green foliage and grows to a height of about 50 cm in height.  Leaves look to be fairly glossy from the few pictures I can find, which seems to fit the bill based on its habitat.  Can likely be an epiphytic plant or a terrestrial plant.  The leaves look borderline succulent which is likely a reason for the species designation.  The bottom line here is that I can't even find a description for this plant.  All the main culprit sides for descriptions are blank.  Guess there is some work to do...  Also from the pictures it looks like it may be cauliflorous or flowering directly on the stem/wood (possibly at the nodes?).

"Medinilla magnifica flor". by Alberto Salguero CC BY-SA 3.0

Culture:  I CAN give some insight into this as M. magnifica is a fairly available houseplant.  Watering and care requirements should be pretty similar for both species.  The plant prefers to dry out quite a bit between waterings.  Plant in a well drained media (some bark will help) that doesn't compact too much.  Remember the whole epiphyte thing?  Likely doesn't enjoy heavy clay soils. It apparently likes moist soils but that is just from one reference.  M. magnifica likes to dry out a bit between waterings so...keep an eye on it and read the plant.  It'll talk to you if you listen.  Obviously not frost hardy, indoors only.  I did find a specific note for M. succulenta that it benefits from some tip pruning.  The berries are produced on older wood though, so don't cut back too hard.  Supposedly can produce flowers/berries throughout the year so it would make a fantastic houseplant.  

I want one.

"Medinilla magnifica flor". by Alberto Salguero CC BY-SA 3.0

"Starr 020913-0003 Medinilla cumingii" by Forest & Kim Starr. CC BY 3.0

Plant of the day is:Toxicoscordion venonosus or meadow deathcamas

Plant of the day is: Toxicoscordion venonosus or meadow deathcamas

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported credit: Stan Shebs

I've got this listed as Zigadenus venenosus and several other sites do as well, including the USDA Plants Database.  Take your pick.  It looks like Toxicoscordion appeals to a larger taxonomic crowd.  Always a good idea to check synonyms for plants if you're having a hard time finding information.  This is a pretty neat plant, and QUITE deadly.

Taxonomy, etc.:  A member of the Melanthiaceae family whose members reside in the northern hemisphere.  It is a family of monocots that contains about 17 genera and 5 tribes.  Toxicoscordion is in the Melanthieae tribe along with Veratrum (which has Veratrum nigrum the black false hellebore which is also a sweet plant).  Other familiar genera include Paris and the Trilliums.  The Toxicoscordion genus is mainly distributed in the midwestern US and western North America.  Toxicoscordion has been moved out of Zigadenus because of those crazy crazy molecular phylogenetic scientists throwing down on science.  Only about 8 accepted species here, tis a small genus.  Quite small. 

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic credit: Matt Lavin

Description:  Distinguished from other members of it's tribe by the presence of narrow, clawed tepals with a single, conspicuous, rounded gland.  Hmmm..bet that's fun to look for...

    T. venenosum is a perennial bulb that grows up to 70 cm tall with grass like leaves.  The bulbs are oval and while they may look a little bit like onions, they DO NOT smell like onions.  Sometimes these are confused with wild onions...with deadly results.  I always say use your nose people, it's good for these things, maybe we even evolved a purpose similar to that when we were hunters and gatherers?  Flowers are cream colored to yellowish.  Bulbs are geophytes, fun word to describe a plant that spends part of its life cycle underground, just chillin, waiting for the right time to resume life.  Anyways, flowers form in a simple, terminal, spike-like cluster.  There are 6 tepals...that claw I mentioned...very lacking to as much as one whole mm long.  Gar.  That gland is yellowish-green, oval and usually broader than long.  Flowers between April and July.

Habitat:  Widespread throughout much of the western United States, Canada, and northern Baja California.  It grows in dry meadows, dry hillsides, sagebrush slopes, and montane forests.

Hopefully the USDA database fixes their maps soon.  I miss them.

Propagation:  Needs a cold-moist stratification of anywhere from 40 to 90 days.  I missed getting my seed into cold stratification and no germination occurred for several weeks.  After 2 months with no germination I threw them into a 5C fridge and forgot about them for awhile.  About 3 months later they were germinating in their cells still in the fridge.  No light requirement for germination but if you sow them deeply they will not germinate (according to some source I forget).  And ...they will germinate at 5C or so, which is neat and makes sense as they put on growth in the spring and go dormant during hot summer temps.  Shoot for a late fall/early winter stratification to have them ready for cooler spring temperatures for growth as hot temps can prematurely force them into dormancy.  Learning the cycles of dormant plants has been a fun challenge.  Plants are good teachers, often cruel, but always good.  I don't think they are particularly picky about media but go for something well drained.

Fun stuffs:  It is quite poisonous, do not eat it.  Even if you feel you're pretty metal and enjoy the name deathcamas, do try to refrain.  You might die, and that is so not metal.  They contain neurotoxic alkaloids like zygacine and esters of zygadenine.  Just those names sound bad.  Yeesh.  Zygadenine is possibly more potent than strychnine...so yeah, gonna want to watch out for that.  ONE bulb ingested can be fatal.  It basically just stops your heart, complete and total failure.  Again, don't eat it you silly humans.  Reportedly some memebers of the Lewis and Clark expedition became ill from eating the bulb, because eating random bulbs in the middle of the wilderness is survival tip number 1?  Humans...  After they were ill...they ate their dogs to sustain them on the rest of the trip.  Things you don't learn in school.

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported credit:  Walter Siegmund

Plant of the day is: Polygala lewtonii or Lewton's milkwort

Plant of the day is: Polygala lewtonii or Lewton's milkwort

One of the things I love most about my job is working around such passionate people that introduce me to some of the best things the world has to offer.  This little plant has an interesting and at times, sad, tale.  Notice the flower structure below, it's quite unique.

Public Domain

Taxonomy, etc.:  Unique enough to warrant a family.  A member of the Polygalaceae family, or milkwort family.  I don't believe I've covered this family before, kinda neat.  The Plant List notes 27 genera for the family with around 1200 accepted species.  Polygala is the type genus for the family.  The genus has a near-cosmopolitan distribution.  The inflorescence is a raceme of several flowers.  Flowers have two large petal-like sepals (plural calyx btw.) on the sides.  You can those sepals in the picture above.  There are three smaller sepals found behind.  The three true petals are joined at the bases the lower of the three making up the "keel" petal which is cucullate (hood-like).  You can also make out above, the stamen and style that are found in the curve of the keel petal.  All in all, a really interesting flower, and flowers are of course what taxonomic designation is all about.  I can see why these get their own shout-out.

Description:  A short-lived perennial (5-10 years) with a taproot.  Fleshy stems arise from the taproot about 20cm tall.  Leaves are alternate and overlapping.  Leavers are linear to spatula-shaped and only about a centimeter long.  THIS is the neat part here.  There are three types of flowers that occur on the plant.  What?  Three types of flowers?  That's crazy!  The flowers on top are your typical chasmogamous flowers.  You know, chasmogamous, "open marriage"?  These are normal flowers relying on open pollination.  This plant ALSO produces cleistogamous "closed marriage" flowers at the base of the plant.  This is where it gets fun.  These flowers, in the lower leaf axils, do not open and are self-pollinated.  The THIRD type (what?!?!) is also cleistogamous and occurs underground and also self-pollinate.  The very cool practice of developing seeds asexually is called apomixis.  The even coooooler practice of producing above ground chasmogamous flowers and below ground cleistogamous flowers is called amphicarpy.  Seriously folks, plants are SO much more than meets the eye.  This is one of only a few DOZEN amphicarpic angiosperms known WORLDWIDE.  Kind of a big deal yo.

 From Native Florida Wildflowers Blog

But why!?:  Seems like an awful lot of work huh?  All those weird flowers, well, rest assured, there IS a reason.  Firstly, I'll say that cleistogamous flowers are actually cheaper in terms of energy investment to make.  They typically aren't fully formed complete flowers, they don't exist to attract pollinators so why spend the time and energy into nectar, color, petals, and the like?  These plants still get the added benefit of sexual reproduction for genetic vigor (and better evolution) but the germination rates of the insect pollinated flowers are notoriously low (as low as 10%).  This presents a problem for species conservation, that I'll touch on shortly.  But why UNDERGROUND flowers and seeds?  That takes us to our next topic...

 From Native Florida Wildflowers Blog

Habitat:  So I may as well mention now, this is endemic to Florida and a federally listed endangered species of the United States (as of 1993).  :(.  It occurs in the central ridge of the peninsula (the sandhills) and there are only about 49 occurrences of the plant remaining, most of which contain very few plants.  The cause: Humans, habitat degradation, same ole story.  It is a rather neat ecological area for plant life and there are several other plants that are endangered found in this habitat.  In the instance of this plants demise, it's all about fire.  Coming back to those underground seeds, they formed in case the plant up top gets roasted by a fire!  Clever right?  Dang clever.  Smoke is thought to aid germination as well (I SO want to do germination studies on this plant).  Fire helps eliminate competing plants and rejuvenates populations of the plant.  The plant declines the longer its habitat goes without a fire.  Absolutely atrocious fire suppression policies (country-wide really) coupled with the conversion of its habitat to citrus groves and residential areas has greatly reduced this species numbers and resulted in habitat fragmentation.  Add to ALL of this the fact that some of the remaining populations are in areas popular for off-roading ....and you've just got all kinds of human neglect and failure.

The good news is that some populations are now on protected land with prescribed burns.  Also, the passionate plant people of the world will be working to introduce new populations, bank seeds for long term storage, and test germination and development.  

There is still some good left in the world Mr. Frodo.  For a detailed report on the species as well as current conservation plans, the USFWS 5-Year Review is a great read.

Plant of the day is: Drosera affinis or South African sundew

Plant of the day is: Drosera affinis or South African sundew

Hard to cite these:  Tell me to take it down if ya own it and hate education.

Hopefully I'll be growing several of these soon.  I've never grown carnivorous plants before.  Should be an adventure.  Can't wait to see some tentacles.  It'll be the first time I'll feed a plant with fish food (seriously...fish food).  Though...they may get plenty of bugs in my greenhouse.

Taxonomy/etc.:  Where to start really?  Drosera is a fascinating genus in the Droseraceae family and is the type genus for the family.  It is a small family with around 200 accepted species (LOTS of debate about species designation in the Drosera genus).  Drosera are, of course, called sundews and are one of the largest genera of carnivorous plants.  Typically perennial (rarely annual) herbaceous plants.  Most of them are relatively small but D. erythrogyne has climbing stems that can reach up to 3 m.  Impressive.  There are a few divisions of sundews, including: temperate, subtropical, pygmy, tuberous, and petiolaris complex.  The pygmy and petiolaris complex groups are found in Australia.  D. derbyensis is a BONKERS looking petiolaris complex, just bonkers.  Click here if you don't believe me.

Description:  Drosera affinis is one of the subtropical species resembling D. nidiformis when young.  Early growth forms as a basal rosette which then forms an elongated stem up to 25cm long.  The petioles of the leaf are a nice yellow/red color, as well as the lamina (leaf blade).  The tentacle looking things that stick out of the leaf are ...called tentacles and at the tips there is a mucilaginous bead that contains enzymes to digest the unwary (and unlucky) insect that happens to wander into its snare.  The liquid suffocates the insect and then the insect is digested.  Pretty rough way to go, reminds me of the pit of Sarlacc.  Most carnivorous plants have developed these complex strategies for survival because they live in very nutrient poor soils and have adapted to supplement their diets with readily available nitrogen from passing insects.  The pygmy sundew, for example, doesn't even produce certain enzymes that most other plants do that are necessary to extract nitrogen from the soil (like nitrate reductase).  Sometimes I think it's easy to forget just how OUTSIDE the box many plants have evolved to survive.  Truly impressive.  

Habitat:  Middle Africa (Angola, Dem. Rep. of Congo), eastern Africa (Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Aambia, Zimbabwe)

Culture:  Like many carnivorous plants living in swampy/boggy areas, D. affinis prefers lots of moisture and a lot of light.  D. affinis is actually one of the easier species to grow and has become more and more popular and available as that discovery has come to light.  It used to be a fairly uncommon species in cultivation.  From a few blogs I ran across, it looks like it does like a good amount of water and at least 30% relative humidity.  Grow in 2 to 4" pots as they develop a long root system.  Feed once every two weeks. For BEST results, use RO or distilled water.  You want water with very low mineral content or total dissolved solids (TDS).  

On growing media:  Two options are common.  The first is a 1:1 blend of milled pet and sand.  The downside to using this is that you need to "rinse" both of these (basically rinse out in multiple changes of water in a 5 gallon bucket) to get the best result.  This leaches out the minerals/nutrients and leads to less algae growth down the road.  Best to use silica sand (quartz sand) as well, as it tends to be much cleaner (pool sand is good).  Downside is that silica sand is an irritant when inhaled and can cause silicosis if too much for too long is inhaled.  The second method is the method I am going to use, which just uses long-fibered sphagnum.  You still need to "rinse" the long-fibered sphagnum but it is a MUCH easier process and only requires working with one component.  Sounds good to me.  Throw in some antimicrobial properties of long-fibered sphagnum and you've got a great media to grow in.  

Watering:  Must always be wet.  Best strategy is to use bottom watering by placing your pot in a plastic watertight bin and flooding with 1/4" to 1" of water in the bottom.  Add water when low but do not let the plants dry out.  Easy method.  Again, use RO or low mineral/nutrient content water.

Fertilizing:  Beta Bites pellets (crushed).  Can use bloodworms, fruit flies, fungus gnats (they might help clean the greenhouse for you!).

HUGE thanks to Aaron May, Lutz Pludra, and Phil Anton at GrowSundews.com for their AMAZINGLY detailed work to educate noobs like me on the art of growing sundews.