An attractive member of the Asteraceae (Sunflower) family Senecio elegans is an erect annual herb, up to 1 ft. tall and to 1.5 ft. wide. It is native to Southern Africa and is distributed along coastal California. In northern San Luis Obispo County there are groups at San Simeon Point and at the other end of the county in the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes. Local CNPS members have located them in the Dunes as follows–1984: Hidden Willow Valley by Malcolm McLeod and Austin Griffiths; 1986: Kathleen Jones; 1990: south of Oso Flaco Lake by Lynne Dee Althouse and David Keil. Germinating following rainfall, leaves have blades which are deeply cut (pinnately lobed), into several toothed lobes and are sticky to the touch. The spectacular fuchsia colored, daisy-like inflorescence bears flower heads lined with black-tipped phyllaries (leaf-like plant part located just below a flower). They contain many (100+) deep yellowish disc florets at the center. Each has 13+ fuchsia colored ray florets. The flower heads turn into fluffy white seeds, ready for the wind to disperse the seeds. Senecio elegans is an escaped invasive weed where it spreads rapidly, displacing indigenous vegetation such as Dunedelion (Malacothrix incana). Control is achieved by pulling it before flowering. I’ve been able to easily pull many hundreds in the Dunes south of Oso Flaco.
Everyone’s been to the beach, yes. But how much have we looked around to see what vegetation patterns are there to greet us? San Luis Obispo County dunes, and the Oceano dunes surrounding Oso Flaco Lake in particular, are awesome places that are full of rare plants and at least three rare natural communities, as defined by the Manual of California Vegetation (Sawyer, Keeler-Wolf and Evens, 2009). Let’s explore them. And remember, we give these communities names only to make it easier for ourselves to talk about them. We draw lines around them as we see them repeating in nature, but plants don’t always adhere to our neat little coloring books and boxes. There is really a continuum in vegetation; we separate areas mostly for our own convenience.
Closest to the beach, but not actually on the beach, are what are called dune mats, the Abronia latifolia-Ambrosia chamissonis Herbaceous Alliance and its associations. Some of you may know this as central or southern foredunes (Holland’s Preliminary Descriptions of Terrestrial Natural Communities of California, 1986), others as pioneer dune communities (Holland and Keil’s California Vegetation, 1995). In this community, sand verbena and beach bur-sage are characteristically present. It has a global ranking of G3 and a State ranking of S3, meaning it has less than 21-100 viable occurrences, or occupies a certain rather small area. Dune mats are characteristically found on small hummocks in between sandy areas within about a quarter mile of the surf zone. You might also see sea rocket and the invasive European beachgrass here. Rare plants found here include the surf thistle (Cirsium rhothophilum) and beach spectaclepod (Dithyrea maritima).
Remember that dune communities exist in an unstable environment, with frequent winds, salt spray, and shifting sands. As mentioned above, the communities also shift and sometimes blend into each other. And in extremely protected areas in between the hummocks we often find dune swales containing wetland vegetation. We’ll save those wetland types for another time, but let’s move on to another upland dune community.
Inland from the foredune community and on slightly more stable soils, we find silver dune lupine-mock heather scrub, the Lupinus chamissonis-Ericameria ericoides Shrubland Alliance and its associations. Again, this community has other names such as central dune scrub (Holland 1986, referenced above), and dune scrub communities (Holland and Keil, 1995). Hoover’s Vascular Plants of San Luis Obispo County, 1970 refers to these areas as coastal sand plains. In this community, either silver dune lupine or mock heather is “conspicuous.” This community also has a ranking of G3 S3. This community can extend far inland, to almost 3 miles (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2016). Here you might also see sea cliff buckwheat, California poppy, and occasionally, giant coreopsis (now Leptosyne gigantea), which blends into the next community. If you’re lucky you might find the den of a burrowing owl here, or even see an owl. Rare plant species found here include Blochman’s leafy daisy (Erigeron blochmaniae), dune larkspur (Delphinium parryi ssp. blochmaniae), and Kellogg’s horkelia (Horkelia cuneata ssp.sericea).
South of Oso Flaco Lake is a very rare natural community that many of us have visited and know its location well as Coreopsis Hill. Did you know that the community is called Giant coreopsis scrub? Its official name is Coreopsis gigantea Shrubland Alliance, but as we all know, the major dominant plant species, giant coreopsis, has had its name changed to Leptosyne gigantea. (But note that Leptosyne gigantea is not considered a rare plant.) In our area, this community inhabits the stabilized backdunes, but further south it occurs on bluffs immediately along the edge of the coastline. This community is ranked G3 S3 and is also considered sensitive. According to the Manual of California Vegetation, wherever the giant coreopsis occurs at greater than 30 percent relative cover, we can call the community giant coreopsis scrub. It typically co-occurs with Ericameria ericoides, Artemisia californica, and other dune-lupine-mock heather scrub species. Coreopsis Hill is its northernmost natural occurrence. This is the community shown on our front cover this month. These are only three of our rare natural communities that inhabit dunes along our coastline. Again, it is important to point out that there are variations and subdivisions within these types; these are called Associations. Some associations have been identified and classified; others have not. This means there is more work for our Plant Communities committee to do!
A member of the Asteraceae family, bull thistle is an annual herb native to Europe and is widespread in California and listed as a noxious weed in Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington. It is found in every state in the U.S. and on every continent except Antarctica. It is a problem in some natural areas such as Yosemite National Park, California. It might have been introduced to eastern North America during colonial times, and to western North America in the late 1800s. Bull thistle is the most common and widespread of pasture and rangeland thistles in western North America. It is also found in disturbed areas such as forest clearcuts, and along roads, riparian areas, and fences. Plants can form dense thickets, displacing other vegetation. The spiny nature of the plant renders it unpalatable to wildlife. Bull thistle is usually a biennial, but can be monocarpic (flowers and seeds one time) and die. It forms a deep taproot and prefers
fertile, well drained soils and grows to 3 to 4 ft. tall. In the juvenile phase, individual bull thistle plants form a single rosette to 3 ft. in diameter. Stems have spiny wings with many spreading branches, and sometimes a single stem. Leaves are 3 to 12 inches long, deeply lobed with coarse prickly hairs on top and woolly underneath. Lobes are tipped with stout spines. Bull thistle flower heads are pink-magenta, to 2 inches in diameter, to 2 inches long, usually solitary, or clustered at the ends of shoots and branches. Large spiny bracts (modified or specialized leaves) surround the seed heads. Bull thistle fruits are achenes (a simple dry fruit), 1/16th-inch long, with a long, hairy plume that is easily detached. Plants can produce up to 300 seeds per flowerhead, with 1 to 400 flower heads per plant. The seed bank is very short lived on the surface but may last 3 years if buried. The key to successful management of bull thistle is to prevent seed production. Seedling and rosette growth stages are the most logical to target for control efforts.
Bonnie’s drawing for this issue of OBISPOENSIS has never been used in any local newsletter. Bonnie drew it for Dr. David Keil and my plant taxonomy text back in the early 1970’s. Why has it not been used? Well, first a look at Bonnie’s drawing will indicate that the species produces inconspicuous flowers. It lacks petals, and the flowers are semi-hidden in the axils of its somewhat succulent leaves, and the species is not native to California. Its common names include New Zealand, or dune, spinach, Tetragonia tetragonoides. For you old timers like me, back in the 1970’s its most common published scientific name was Tetragonia expansa.
New Zealand spinach is considered by many to be an invasive weed. I assume we must go along with that, but my experience with it around here is that it’s not particularly good at it. It prefers slightly salty (halophilic) soils. It also seems to require a bit of disturbance. So, look for it at the upper, less salty edge of salt marsh and/or on coastal benches, especially in disturbed sites where few other species can grow. A few individual plants have been found along the edge of Los Osos Creek, west of Bay View bridge. It is especially common along the trails south of Spooner’s Cove in Montaña de Oro State Park, where it became sufficiently dense to warrant a targeted removal project. It can also be encountered as a weed all along the coast.
New Zealand spinach belongs to a family of flowering plants, Aizoaceae, that is primarily native to the Southern Hemisphere. New Zealand spinach is, in fact native to Southern Africa but has spread to New Zealand and is apparently a serious weed throughout southern Australia. Obviously, it has also been introduced into North America and Eurasia. The genus, Tetragonia, has around a dozen species and its generic name is derived from the four (tetra-) wings that are produced on the green fruit. These wings dry up and essentially disappear in the mature fruit. The inconspicuous flower displays a pale yellow color, but the flowers have no petals, only sepals as it only produces a single whorl of perianth (collective term for sepals and petals). If a perianth has only one whorl, botanists tend to regard them as sepals. These sepals, as well as the stamens are attached to the top of the ovary which makes the ovary inferior. The more famous and probably even more weedy members of the Aizoaceae are the ice plants
(Carpobrotus and Mesembryanthemum).
Wherever New Zealand spinach is found growing, its leaves have been used as a green vegetable. One web source indicated that the Magellan expedition around the world was especially happy to find a patch of it. They would pick the leaves, boil them and then dry (preserve) them for eating. It was particularly good in preventing scurvy! However, note that they boiled the leaves before eating them. The leaves contain enough oxalate chemicals to cause oxalate poisoning. Oxalate chemicals are usually destroyed by boiling.
Dirk Walters
Tetragonia in flower: close-up photo by David Chipping
Bluff Trail, Montaña de Oro S.P., site of a New Zealand spinach removal project to encourage the return of native plants. Photo by David Chipping
About the Artwork: The plant on the cover of this issue of the Obispoensis is the elegant clarkia or mountain garland (Clarkia unguiculata). It’s another drawing by Mardi Niles, using Prismacolor Verithin color pencils. When I first saw Mardi’s work, they were a fantastic study of the development of an inflorescence and the opening of flowers. I remember them as pencil sketches. Later, I saw them as beautiful finished watercolors. Unfortunately, our mailed chapter newsletter often has a grey-scale print on the cover.
Now let’s talk about elegant clarkia. It gets that name because its flowers are beautiful (and elegant) and the plant stands tall (up to 3 feet or more) which adds to its elegance. As can be seen, the 4 petals have an unusual shape. They have a long, narrow base and a broad triangular tip. Botanists call this shape ‘spatulate’. The sepals are fused into a disk that’s attached below the attachment of the 8 stamens. Note that only four of the stamens look like normal, functioning stamens with large anthers and the other four have tiny anthers. I don’t know if they have any function or not. Note the single flower bud shown in the picture. It is deflexed or has its tip pointing downward. This is an important character used to separate groups of species in the genus, Clarkia.
Photo of Cal Poly herbarium sheets C. unguiculata with calyx and ovary bearing long spreading hairs
Elegant clarkia is endemic to California where it ranges throughout the foothills of the Coast and Sierra Nevada ranges. It seems to be rare or absent away from hills. The distribution map for the species in California resembles a big ‘O’ with the Central Valley inside the ‘O’. I find that the easiest place to find elegant clarkia growing is on roadsides, especially roadsides passing through hilly country. It is especially noticeable growing with thistle sage at Shell Creek.
Dr. Keil’s SLO County Flora (in preparation) will be recognizing a close relative of the Clarkia ungiculata, C. tembloriensis. C. tembloriensis, as its name implies was probably described from plants growing in Temblor Range. Dr. Robert F. Hoover, in the original San Luis Obispo County Flora, has a relatively long discussion of the two species that ends in his concluding that the two species intergrade so much in eastern San Luis Obispo County that it would not be productive to try and separate them. Well, we’ll have to wait to read what Dr. Keil has to say about them when his new County Flora is available.
Elegant clarkia makes a wonderful addition to a native plant garden; especially in a flower bed set aside for annuals. I first became acquainted with the plant in Ralph Baker’s Shell Beach front yard Ralph was the acting Chapter President when I joined the Chapter back in 1970. It was Ralph’s clarkias that inspired me to see if it would grow for me despite my very brown thumb. Since it is said to grow readily from seed, I obtained my first seed at a Chapter Plant Sale many years ago. Today, it now grows luxuriantly in my front yard in San Luis Obispo adobe clay despite most of my horticultural sources recommending well drained soils. Seed from my adobe grown plants were at the SEED EXCHANGE set up before our October Meeting and will also be available at the upcoming PLANT SALE the first Saturday in November.
-DIRK WALTERS
Photos of Cal Poly herbarium sheet showing C. tembloriensis with calyx and ovary with tiny little hairs
Heather Johnson has a new watercolor for us to use on the cover of this issue of Obispoensis. One might ask what is the origin of the practice of putting a different plant on the cover of each Obispoensis issue? It all started with the founder of our CNPS chapter, Dr. Robert Hoover. At the beginning of the first CNPS chapter meeting I ever attended (Fall, 1969) Dr. Hoover got up and made a presentation of what he called the “Plant of the Month.” It turned out the plant he chose to discuss was not a native plant or to even be known to exist in the wild. He discussed Franklinia alatamaha or Franklin Tree, a plant that had been collected and described from Georgia during Colonial times but after exhaustive searches hadn’t been found since. Why did he talk about a plant extinct in the wild? It had just appeared on a newly published United States postage stamp!
However, Heather’s cover watercolor is of a plant found throughout California as well as all the surrounding states. One or more of its varieties spread north into British Columbia and South all the way to Central America. The plant is seen on practically every spring field trip, but I’m reluctant to call it common. I prefer to think of it as widespread. Miner’s lettuce prefers shaded, moist, disturbed areas. It tends to be common during the rainy season and spotty other times. In the early spring, when there’s still lots of surface water, it can be found just about anywhere. I have a picture from the Shell Creek area of it growing in the crotch of a blue oak tree.
I also suspect everyone who has any experience with native plants, especially edible native plants, already knew what it is. Yes, it’s most commonly identified around the central coast as miner’s lettuce (Claytonia (Montia) perfoliata). In a book entitled Edible Wild Plants (originally, 1939) by Oliver P. Medsger, that has been in my library since my childhood, has also been called Indian lettuce, or Spanish lettuce and in Europe it’s cultivated under the name of winter purslane. All these names refer to use as a spring green. I suspect the name, miner’s lettuce, is the most recent and probably dates back only to the mid-1800s when California was over-run with miners looking for gold. I also am sure the miner’s diet was mostly tubers, grain, legumes with some meat and whisky. All of these ‘foods’ lacked enough required vitamins and minerals which would have been amply supplied by grabbing a handful of miner’s lettuce leaves on the way to a stream to pan for gold.
Heather’s watercolor is only of a couple of flowering stems which produce the leaves that were used to coin the second part of the scientific name – perfoliata. The situation where a leaf blade base appears to be passed through (perforated) by its stem is said to be perfoliate. The regular leaves are all basal and form a mound a few inches high and wide. Each basal leaf is modestly succulent and is in the shape of the spatula from your kitchen. It has a long tapering base and broad squarish or egg-shaped tip. I suspect it’s these basal leaves that were eaten.
You may also have noticed that there are two possible generic names for this plant – Claytonia and Montia. So, which is the correct genus? Also, if you go to older floras and wildflower books you will find that its botanical family seems to have changed from Portulaccaceae to Montiaceae. The name currently valid according the Jepson Manual, 2nd Ed. Is Claytonia perfoliata and is placed in the Montiaceae family. According to the Jepson Manual, the change in genus and family is referenced to a paper published in 2006. This means that the change is probably based on modern DNA sequence data as well as new technical descriptive data which was then organized using current computer classification techniques. The Jepson Manual also noted that some of the characters used required a microscope with 20X magnification which most of us don’t have. This procedure resulted in miner’s lettuce (along with a couple of other species) being moved from the genus, Montia, to the genus Claytonia which included several species of spring beauties. The remaining species in Montia remained in Montia and a new family was created for them – Montiaceae. Why didn’t the species name (perfoliata) change when the species was moved to a new genus? This is due to another rule of Botanical Nomenclature. When a species is moved from one genus to another, the species epithet moves with it unless the species epithet already exists in the new genus. If it does, the mover must come up with a new name for the species in its new location. Since the epithet, perfoliata, didn’t already exist in Claytonia, the epithet moved with miner’s lettuce’s scientific name to its new location. This rule helps keep track of name changes.
-Dirk Walters
Claytonia perfoliata, Miner’s Lettuce; original watercolor by Heather Johnson
The workshop is full and registration is closed. Please send an email to the organizers if you wish to be added to the wait list. You will be contacted by October 4 if space becomes available.
This CNPS-SLO chapter workshop will provide a short lecture followed by field trips to local native plant gardens.
Learn about:
Which plants tend to be available and work well
Selecting appropriate plants based on site conditions
Plant/soil relationships
Learn from local landscapers and gardeners
Morning refreshments and coffee will be provided.
Class size is limited and advanced registration is required.
Registration ends October 4th, 2019. Cost is $30 for members and $40 for non-members. We will meet at UC Cooperative Extension (2156 Sierra Way # C, San Luis Obispo) for the lecture and first garden tour. Other garden tours will be at native plant enthusiasts’ homes in SLO. Questions? Please email David Krause dkincmbria@aol.com
Please arrive by 8:45 for check-in and breakfast refreshments. Participants are encouraged to bring a sack lunch to enjoy at the last tour stop.
The stars finally aligned for us. On March 21, 2019, our chapter had the opportunity to work with Bev Gingg and Learning Among the Oaks, a program that has been working to introduce young children to the oak woodland community at the Santa Margarita Ranch, and, more recently, at the Pismo Preserve. The successful program, started in 2005, is now part of the Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo and has grown so that it services Ocean View Elementary in Arroyo Grande in addition to Santa Margarita Elementary School, the original ‘home-base’ for the program. Children are recommended by their teachers to be part of the nine-week Oak Ambassador Training Program in which they learn how to serve as a docent and lead hikes in the oak woodland for younger students and their families. The Ambassadors receive comprehensive training about the oak ecosystem through classroom lectures and field visits, and spend time shadowing older Ambassadors as docents so they are prepared to do the same when they become fifth graders.
CNPS participated in one of the classroom trainings by preparing a botany lesson for a group of very motivated Ocean View Elementary fourth graders. We displayed numerous plant specimens representing plant communities of the Pismo Preserve, as well as plants that illustrated different seed dispersal methods and leaf arrangements. We knew that our efforts in preparing the lab were well-received when we heard the excited exclamations as the kids filed into the room. Our favorites: “It smells so good in here!” and “Botany is the best!” It was a whirlwind of an hour, packed with opportunities to learn about xylem tubes through the magic of celery and water cohesion by combining droplets together with a toothpick; discovering the parts of a flower through a keying exercise; smelling and questioning the pungent leaves of some of our common local plants; and, for a few lucky kids, getting ‘stamped’ with the lovely spore print of goldback fern on their clothes. We even had an excellent slideshow to pull it all together, created and presented by the engaging Lindsey Roddick.
Lindsey, Bill Waycott, and Susi Bernstein made up the CNPS team of “Plant Nerds” this time, but we welcome any of you reading this article to join us next spring. There are plans to expand the program to additional schools in the future, and CNPS has been asked to conduct botany lessons for these schools as well. Would you like to join us? There are bright children out there with receptive, spongy little brains. YOU could inspire and help mold them into future conservationists and CNPS members. -Susi
Dana Elementary School, Nipomo
Here are a couple of projects CNPS is currently working on in Nipomo, CA. Last summer, we reported on work with a 5th Grade class at Dana Elementary School, who had helped plant a CA native garden on the north side of the Nipomo County Library. Now, six months later, that garden is flourishing and the librarian, Heidi LoCascio, has asked CNPS to organize a larger planting for the front of the Library. This new garden will be planted by the parents and children who use the library and live in the local community, at the end of April 2019.
The other project involves the current 5th Grade class at Dana Elementary, which is creating a California native and vegetable garden at their school. Two weeks ago, those kids sowed flats of wild flowers seeds (arroyo lupine, tidy tips, and CA poppies), along with lettuce seeds. By the end of April, the students will have prepared the garden soil, and by mid-May their native plant and veggie seedlings will be large enough to transplant into the garden, it is hoped that by the end of the school year during the second week of June, the kids will have flowers and veggies to take home and enjoy.
This plant was used for a variety of uses throughout California. The Chumash made a tea to put on poison oak to relieve the symptoms. They also made a felt cone from the dried leaves to burn on a patients skin to cauterize a wound (Source: Jan Timbrook). Leaves were placed in food storage containers, such as acorn granaries, to keep pests away. It was used ceremonially by many tribes. I think it has a lovely aroma, which according to some tribes, will give you pleasant dreams when put it under your pillow.
One time, many years ago, I volunteered to cut down a very large bush of poison oak next to a building at work because I did not think that I was very allergic to it. In the process of chopping it, there was so much sap that it went right through my clothes to my sweaty skin with open pores. I caught a bad case of it. I was on my way that weekend to a camping trip with the California Indian Basket Weavers Association in the Sierra foothills. I forgot to pack the Caladryl and was so miserable in the heat with my rash. I thought I might have to give up and go home. Then I remembered what I had heard about the mugwort. I asked one of the local women where it might grow nearby and she told me to go to where the highway goes close to the river. I gathered a bunch, crunched it up in a bucket of water. It kind of looked like Mug root beer. I found that when I sloshed it on my skin, I got just enough relief that I could stay at the event and enjoy myself.
Mugwort grows easily from runners and likes soggy winter soil that dries up in summer. It will die back then but come back when the rains start again. It likes the shade of oak trees, and will grow in sun if it has more water. It tolerates heavy clay soil just fine. It is often found along the side of trails and streams. It doesn’t have much in the way of flowers, but smells great.
