flowering plants #4

Mustard

Herbs. Flowers in racemes. Sepals and petals 4. Petals free. Stamens 6 (4 long, 2 short). Fruit a carpelled silicle or silique. Leaves alternate or basal. Usually simple, cauline, often clasping.

Plants usually with radish to acid taste. Floral parts in quarters except stamens. Stamens usually 6 with 4 long and 2 short. Ovary superior, fruit silicle or silique.

Petals like a cross (with equal arms +). Family includes cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, brussel sprouts, raddish, turnips.

Field characteristics: Regular 4-merous flower. Raddish taste. Typical raceme inflorescence.

Class examples: honesty/money plant, field mustard, non-identified common weed, unidentified mustard

Saxifrage

Herbs or shrubs. Flowers small. Sepals and petals 4 or 5. Carpels usually 2 or 3. Leaves mostly simple, alternate or basal. Examples prairie starflower, alum-root.

Flowers of usually 5 sepals, 5 petals; petals often clawed as in Fringe Cup. Stamens 10-5. Placentation without stipules. Plants can be confused with members of rose family.

Found on moist cliffs, meadows and road cuts. Shade tolerant. Look for basal leaves. Inflorescence stem above leaves, flowers in pancile. Double horned style in flower.

Hypanthium--fused lower portions of sepals, petals and stamens forming tube, cup or plate.

Field characteristics: Presence of hypanthium. Divergent double styles. Tendency towards basal leaves. Stamens of different numbers (5 or 10). No stipules on leaves.

Class examples: fringe cup

Poppy

Herbs. Often with milky or colored juice. Flowers usually solitary, showy. Petals delicate, crumpled or rolled in bud. Sepals falling offearly. Pistail 1. Fruit a capsule. Leaves various. Examp. California poppy.

Sepals 2 and shead as flower opens. Flowers with 4 showy petals. Fruit capsule opening by pores.

Sepals (usually 2-3) fall off as flower opens (deciduous). Some are contain poisonous alkaloids (toxins). Used as pain medication. Addictive characteristics. Source of opium. Desert poppy California state flower. Extracted oil used for flavoring. Annuals or perennial. Compound pistil. Fruit many seeded capsules opening by pores or valves.

Field characteristics: Flower: all poppy flowers have similar look. Dissected leaves.

Class example: California poppy

• Parsley
• Herbs. Flowers small in simple or comound umbels often subtended by an involucre (group of bracts as a unit below flower or fruit). Fruit a schizocarp (splits into separate carpels at maturity). Plants usu. aromatic. Leaves alternate compound dissected or cleft. Petioles sheathing at base. Examp. Lomatium

Inflorescence an umbel. Fruit schizocarp. Ovary superior. Corolla 5 parted. Usually aromatic herbs with hollow stems. Leaves usually compound.

Likes shade and damp. Celery, parsley, myrrh, carrot. Hemlock--very poisonious.

• Field Characteristics: Aromatic. Hollow furrowed stems. Compound leaves with sheathing at leaf bases. 5-merious white or yellow flowers. Inflorescence a compound umbel. Fruit schizocarp.
• Class example: Cow parsnip

Geranium

Herbs. Flower parts 5 ovary superior and deeply 5 lobed. Fruit a beaked achene or capsule. Example erodium.

Flowers regular. Ovary superior. Sepals and petals all of 5. Stamens of 1-3 series of 5 each. Carpels 5 and weakly united. Fruit is schizocarp.

Pink to red in flower color. Ovary looks like 5 separate lobes stuck together, very segmented.

Field Characteristics: Palmately or pinnately lobed to compound leaves. Flowers 5-merous, Fruit elastically dehiscent schizocarps which curl up on a beak.

Class examples: dove's foot, stork's bill

Figwort/Snapdragon

Herbs or shrubs. Petals united. Corolla usually tublular, bilabiate (two-lipped). 4 or 5 lobed. Ovary superior. Fruit a capsule. Leaves various. Examp. Monkeyflower, penstemon

Flowers usually zygomorphic. Ovary superior. Flowers usually tube-like. Stamen borne on corolla. Flwoers usually bilabiate. Indian paintbrush, Monkey flower.

Irregular flower

Field characteristics:

Class example: foxglove--biennial (rosette 1st year, flowers 2nd year), digitalus made from this, poisonious to livestock (humans too).

Borage/Forget Me Not

• Herbs. Flowers regular. 5 parts corolla often with swelling in the throat. Inflorescence a scorpoid cyme. Ovary superior and deeply loped maturing into 4 one-seeded nutlets. Leaves mostly alternate, entire, and without stipules. Examp. Popcorn flower
• Plants usually hairy without stipules. Flowers 5 sepals, 5 petals, 5 stamen and 2 united carpels forming 4 nutlets. Flowers often coiled cymes. Ovary 4-lobed with style arising from among nutlets.

Field characteristics:

Class example: forget me not

Sunflower/Composite/Aster/Daisy

Herbs or shrubswith flowers in close heads, subtended by a whorl of bracts forming an involucre. Two types of flowers: Ray and Disk. Overary inferior. Seed an achene crowned by teeth, scales, bristles, or hairs. Leaves various. Composites are a large family divided in to tribes: Chicory, Thistle, Everlasting, Aster, Senecio, Anthemis, Sunflower.

Largest family in the pacific northwest.

Composites have 2 types of flowers: Disk (middle part) little tiny flowers packed closely together. Ray (on the edge).

Some have only disk flowers.

Some have only ray flowers.

Class examples: Ox-eye daisy--disk and ray flowers; Cat's ear (dandilion)--all ray flowers; Plantain--only disk flowers

Rose

Herbs or shrubs. Trees or vines. Often thorny. Usually having stipules. Flower parts in 5 with many stamens on a floral cup or hypanthium surrounding the pistils. Friuts various. Examp. Rosa rubus fragaria prunus, Holodiscus potentialla.

Leaves alternate usually with stiules. Petals always separate when present. Ovary either inferior or superior. Stamens and pistils tend to be many in number. Stamens inserted on well developed hypanthium.

Lots of fruit trees--pear, apple, plum, cherry, berries. Has hypanthium--part that comes up sepals and petals come off of it. Some prickles but mostly smooth. Stipules (base of leaves). Parts in 5.

Class examples: Himalayian blackberry--stickery; Thimbleberry--five white petals, bright red berry, edible.

Mint

Herb or small shrubs. Usually aromatic. Flwoers in 5 parts usually bilabiate (2-lipped corolla). Ovary superior, deeply lobed, becoming 4 one-seeded nutlets. Leaves opposite or whorled. Stems 4-sided (square). Examp. mint, prunella

Aromatic, 4-sided stem, irregular flowers

Has 4-sided stem. Aromatic. Flowers irregular (similar to foxglove)

Class example: Field mint