Author: awkwardbotany

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Book Review: Wild Wasatch Front

If it isn’t clear by now from my Weeds of Boise series and countless other posts, I happen to be interested in the flora and fauna of urban areas. Urban ecology is a fascinating field of study, and I’m not sure that it gets the attention it deserves. Nature is not some far away place, and you shouldn’t have to leave city limits to go in search of it. Remarkably, nature exists right outside your front door, even if you live in the middle of a massive city. It may be a different sort of nature than the one you might find in a national forest or a state park, and it may be composed of species introduced from all corners of the world, but it is still a collection of living organisms interacting with each other and the surrounding environment in unique and important ways. The question is, can you grow to appreciate nearby nature and recognize that the ecological interactions that exist within the context of a city are just as valid as those you’ll find outside of our built environments?

Luckily, there are resources that can help you with that, including a recent book compiled by Lisa Thompson and others at the Natural History Museum of Utah (NHMU). It’s called Wild Wasatch Front, and it’s of particular interest to me because it covers a region that’s relatively close by, and our two locations share a number of similarities. Plus, I played a small role in reviewing some of the plants (specifically the weeds) that ended up in the book (Sierra would insist that I mention this, so there you go). Similar books exist for other regions across North America and elsewhere, so I encourage you to seek out a book that applies to your hometown.

The Wasatch Front is a metropolitan region in north-central Utah that spans the western side of the Wasatch Mountains and includes a long string of cities and towns extending for many miles in all directions. Included in that list of cities is Salt Lake City, the state’s capitol and largest city in the state. The idea for a book about urban nature in the Wasatch Front was inspired by an exhibit at NHMU called “Nature All Around Us.” The exhibit and resulting book offer a new perspective for those insisting that “nature and cities cannot coexist” or that the nature found in cities is influenced by humans and therefore shouldn’t be considered “real.” Hundreds of organisms making a life for themselves within the boundaries of our cities might argue otherwise.

Wild Wasatch Front is divided into three main sections, with each section being worth the price of the book on its own. First there are a series of essays about urban nature and ecology. Names you might recognize, including Emma Marris and Riley Black, contributed to the book, as well as several other people that live and work in the western U.S. and have an interest in nature and environmental issues, especially as they relate to cities. Novel ecosystems is a reoccurring theme, not just in the essays but throughout the book. In her essay, Sarah Jack Hinners writes, “urban nature is a mixture of the intentional and the unintentional,” adding that “for every tree or rosebush or lawn that we plant and carefully nurture, there are multitudes of other plants and animals that grow and thrive uninvited and unnurtured by us.”

The largest section in the book is a field guide, profiling 127 plus species that call the Wasatch Front home, some native and some transplants. This section is divided into subsections that include birds, invertebrates, fungi and lichen, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, street trees, and wild plants. The entry for each species includes a brief description, a few interesting facts, and details on how and where to find them, accompanied by images. With the variety of creatures covered, you are sure to find something that interests you and a reason to go out looking for your favorites. You may even learn something new about a species you’ve been seeing for years, such as house finches. It turns out that the colorful patches on a male house finch are the result of the plants they eat. These patches can be red, orange, or yellow. The redder the better though, because female house finches seek out mates with this coloration.

Naturally, my focus was mainly aimed at the plants covered in this section. I appreciated the mixture of native and introduced plants, even the inclusion of plants considered to be invasive. Instead of vilifying these species, there is an attempt to understand them and find value in them, even in spite of the concerns and negative opinions held about them. Box elder (Acer negundo) is an example of a plant that has both native and introduced populations. Once widely planted in yards and on farms, this tree has “fallen out of favor.” Its weak wood (a result of growing so quickly), can result in a messy, unattractive tree, making it a poor choice for a street tree. However, it propagates itself readily and shows up in vacant lots and other urban locations that receive minimal management and human attention. In the Wasatch Front, you can find box elders that are native, naturalized, and cultivated, an unlikely scenario unique to urban areas.

massive box elder (Acer negundo) in Boise, Idaho

The third and final section of the book is a guide to 21 different hikes and field trips in and around the Wasatch Front. Each field trip features a hand-drawn map and some basic notes about the hike. Details about what can be seen along the way are included in the descriptions, which are sure to entice you into visiting. Whether or not you think you’ll ever make it out to any of these spots, this section is still worth reading if only for the ongoing discussions about urban ecology. For example, in the entry for Gib’s Loop, abrupt changes in land ownership and land use (a common experience when hiking in urban areas) is addressed: “Human impacts in the foothills…don’t end at backyard fences, and many animals use resources in both habitats. It’s more interesting to think of cities and the surrounding foothills as part of an interconnected system rather than separate and distinct.”

The field trip section is also used as a teaching opportunity to describe more of the species you’ll find in the Wasatch Front. In the entry for Creekside Park, learn how to identify creeping mahonia (Berberis repens), with its low growing habit and matte leaves, and compare it to Oregon grape (B. aquifolium), with its more upright habit and shinier leaves.

Berberis aquifolium (on the left) compared to Berberis repens (on the right)

Last year, in anticipation of Wild Wasatch Front, I came across another book with a similar focus. This book was put out by a group called The Urban Field Naturalist Project, headquartered in Australia. Their book, A Guide to the Creatures in Your Neighbourhood, encourages its readers to become urban naturalists and offers resources to help them get started. Just like Wild Wasatch Front, the bulk of the book is a field guide to species found in and around urban areas (in Australia, of course). In place of a guide to hikes and field trips, there are instructions on how to start nature journaling, which is a key component of becoming an urban field naturalist. Getting outside and learning to recognize nearby nature is step one, documenting what you see and sharing those observations with others is step two. Taken together, these two books will help you gain a better appreciation for urban nature and will hopefully inspire you to work to conserve what is there and make room for more.

More Book Reviews:

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Randomly Selected Botanical Terms: Phyllaries

Flowers in the aster family have one of the most recognizable shapes in botany – a circle with a series of petals surrounding it. If you were asked to draw a flower, there is a good chance your drawing would look something like a sunflower, a daisy, a cosmos, or an aster. It’s one of the most basic flower shapes, and yet it isn’t a single flower; it’s a pseudanthium – a false flower. This is because what might appear as a single flower is actually a collection of tens, hundreds, or even thousands of tiny flowers. This aggregation of flowers into a single compact unit is the reason the family was once given the name Compositae, and even now is often informally referred to as the composites.

Another reason why a flower in the aster family – or Asteraceae – might be the first thing you would draw is because it is the largest family of flowering plants, numbering up to 33,000 species worldwide. Chances are you’ve seen a few of them around. In the contiguous U.S. alone, there are more than 2400 species, and that doesn’t include the plethora of species brought in from regions across the world either intentionally (to be grown in our gardens) or unintentionally (as weeds). Of course, not all of the species in this family are going to have a typical sunflower-like flower head, but they do all have a specific type of inflorescence called a capitulum. Capitula are made up of densely packed, miniature flowers called florets, which are stalkless (or sessile) and arranged on a flattened central stem (or axis). There are at least four different types of florets in the aster family, but we’ll leave that discussion for another time.

In this post, we’re specifically interested in what is happening at the base or underside of the capitulum. All of the florets in a capitulum are held within a cup or bowl-shaped series of bracts called an involucre. Bracts are modified leaves, and this whorl of tightly held or loosely arranged bracts are initially found surrounding a developing flower bud. As the inflorescence opens, the involucre opens as well and its bracts persist at the base of the flower head. The bracts that make up the involucre are called phyllaries, and they vary in shape, number, and size depending on plant species. In fact, the features of phyllaries are so unique they are often relied on to help identify a plant in the aster family to genus, species, and infraspecies (variety, subspecies, etc.).

phyllaries of blanketflower (Gaillardia aristata)

When it comes to flowers in the aster family, there is more than meets the eye. After you take some time to appreciate the intricate beauty of its collection of florets, turn the flower head over and take in its phyllaries. They come in various colors, they can be hairy or smooth, their margins can be entire or adorned with hairs, teeth, etc., they can be flat and straight or they can curve outwards in interesting ways, their tips can be pointed, spine-tipped, rounded, or keel shaped. Phyllaries can be laid out very evenly, tightly overlapping each other like shingles on a roof (i.e. imbricate) or their arrangement can be slightly uneven and irregular (i.e. subimbricate). Use a hand lens to get a closer look at all of these features. As you get in the habit of observing the details of the involucre and its phyllaries, chances are each time you come across a flower in the aster family, you’ll find yourself flipping it over to get a look at its undercarriage. What will you find?

phyllaries of dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)
phyllaries of Mexican sunflower (Tithonia rotundifolia)
phyllaries of stemless four-nerve daisy (Tetraneuris acaulis)
phyllaries of hoary tansyaster (Dieteria canescens)
phyllaries of aromatic aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium ‘October Skies’)
phyllaries of curlycup gumweed (Grindelia squarrosa)

If phyllaries have piqued your interest and you’d like to learn more about plants in the family Asteraceae, I highly recommend getting your hands on the book, The Sunflower Family by Richard Spellenberg and Naida Zucker. It has a North American focus, but it’s a great place to start learning more about this massive plant family.

More Randomly Selected Botanical Terms:

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Another Year of Pollination: Viscin Threads

While we’re on the subject of pollen-gluing mechanisms, there is another material apart from pollenkitt that a limited number of flowering plant families use to link their pollen grains together. It functions, much like pollenkitt, by aiding in the attachment of pollen to visiting animals. However, unlike pollenkitt, it isn’t sticky, oily, or viscous, and is instead more like a series of threads. Viscin threads to be exact.

One of the major differences between pollenkitt and viscin threads is their composition. The lipid-rich coating that surrounds pollen grains, which we call pollenkitt, is derived from breakdown materials of an inner layer of the anther. It is added to pollen grains after they are formed and before the anther dehisces. Viscin threads are made up of sporopollenin, the same biopolymer that exine (the outer wall of a pollen grain) is composed of. Viscin threads have points of attachment on an outer layer of the exine called the ektexine. Unlike pollenkitt, viscin threads don’t add new color to pollen grains, nor do they contain scent compounds. Their thickness, length, abundance, and texture are dependent on the species of plant they are found on, much like pollenkitt varies in form and composition depending on species.

pollen strands of tufted evening primrose (Oenothera caespitosa)

Viscin threads evolved independently in three distantly related plant families. These include Onagraceae (the evening primrose family), Ericaceae (the heath family), and a subfamily in the pea family known as Caesalpinioideae (the peacock flower subfamily). Viscin threads are found in many, but not all, of the species in these three families. Some species in other plant families have what appear to be viscin threads but are actually ropy strands of pollenkitt, as they are composed of pollenkitt and not sporopollenin. Because they are made up of the same durable material as exine, viscin threads can be preserved in the fossil record. A paper published in Grana (1996) looked at the morphology of pollen grains with viscin threads from the Tertiary Period and concluded that “this advanced pollination syndrome using viscin threads as a pollen connecting agent” dates back to at least the Eocene and perhaps much earlier.

While pollenkitt’s stickiness adheres pollen grains together, viscin threads are more of a tangling device. Single pollen grains or pollen grain groupings called tetrads become tangled up together and then become entangled with a visiting insect, bird, or bat and carried away to a nearby flower. Disentanglement from the pollinator ideally happens when the threads are brushed against the sticky surface of a stigma. The viscin threads themselves vary by species and family. Micheal Hesse, in a paper published in Grana (1981), describes the threads in Onagraceae as “long, numerous, thin, and sculptured” with “knobs, furrows, etc.,” while those in Ericaceae are thin and smooth and those in Caesalpinioideae are thick and smooth.

smooth azalea, pink form (Rhododendron arborescens)

The length and size of tangled pollen masses also differ by species and can offer clues as to which pollinators visit which flowers. Research published in New Phytologist (2019) looked at the size of pollen thread tangles (PTT) in 13 different species of Rhododendron. They also noted which pollinators visited each species and how often they visited. The researchers found that species presenting pollen in small but abundant PTT were visited by bees, and those with large but few PTT were visited by birds and Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths). Bees also visited the flowers more frequently than birds and Lepidoptera. Bees collect and consume pollen. Between visits to anthers, they spend time grooming themselves, removing pollen clusters from their bodies and packing them into corbiculae (i.e. pollen baskets) for later*. Birds and Lepidoptera don’t groom pollen from their bodies and don’t collect it. In the authors terms, this “suggests pollinator-mediated selection on pollen packaging strategies.” Since flowers pollinated by bees lose much of their pollen in the process, they present it in smaller packages, and since flowers pollinated by birds and Lepidoptera are visited less frequently, their pollen packages are larger.

This is an example of the pollen presentation theory, and is something we will revisit as the Year of Pollination continues.

*This applies specifically to bee species that have corbiculae, and many bee species do not.

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Another Year of Pollination: Pollenkitt

Pollination in flowering plants is the process of moving pollen grains, which carry sperm cells, from the anthers to the stigmas of either the same flower or a separate flower. If things go well from there, sperm cells will be transported via pollen tubes into the ovaries where fertilization with egg cells can take place and seeds can form. Pollen grain development occurs within the anthers, and by the time the anthers dehisce – or split open – they are ready for transport.

In order to protect the enclosed sperm cells and aid in their movement, pollen grains consist of a series of layers that, among other things, help ensure safe travel. Two major layers are an internal layer called intine, composed largely of cellulose, and an external layer called exine, composed mainly of sporopollenin (a highly durable and complex biopolymer). In many flowering plants, especially those that rely on animals to help carry their pollen, an additional outer layer called pollenkitt is added to the pollen grains before anthers dehisce.

three different pollen grains (image credit: wikimedia commons/Asja Radja)

Pollenkitt is an oily, viscous, hydrophobic layer composed of lipids, carotenoids, flavonoids, proteins, and carbohydrates derived from the breakdown of an internal layer of the anther called the tapetum. Pollenkitt forms a sticky layer around the pollen grains and can add color to the pollen other than the typical yellow. The thickness of the pollenkitt and its composition is species specific. In fact, the look, size, and shape of pollen grains themselves are unique to each species and can even be used to help identify plants. Pollenkitt is found in almost all families of flowering plants and is particularly prevalent in species that are animal-pollinated. One exception is the mustard family (Brassicaceae), whose pollen grains are coated in a substance known as tryphine, which functions similar to pollenkitt but whose formation and composition differ enough to be considered separately.

dandelion pollen (image credit: wikimedia commons/Captainpixel)

The sticky nature of pollenkitt has numerous functions. For one, it helps pollen grains remain on anthers until an animal comes along to remove them. It also holds pollen grains together in clumps, helps pollen grains stick to insect (and other animal) pollinators during transport, and helps adhere them to stigmas when deposited. A paper published in Flora (2005) lists twenty possible functions for pollenkitt, many of which have been confirmed in certain species and some of which are hypothetical. In addition to functions having to do with pollen movement and placement, pollenkitt may also provide protection from water loss, UV radiation, and fungal and bacterial invasions. In species where pollen is offered as food to pollinating insects, pollenkitt is a more easily digestible food source than the pollen grain itself. Thanks to carotenoids, pollenkitt can make pollen more colorful, which may help attract pollinating insects, or, depending on the color, can also hide pollen from insect visitors.

Another important function of pollenkitt is to give pollen a scent. Odors can help encourage insect visitors or deter them, so depending on the situation, scented pollenkitt may be attracting pollinators or discouraging pollen consumers. In a study published in American Journal of Botany (1988), Heidi Dobson analyzed the chemical composition of 69 different species of flowering plants. She isolated numerous scent compounds in pollenkitt and suggested that “some of the chemicals in pollenkitt may … serve as identification cues to pollen-foraging bees.” Most of the species she analyzed were pollinated by bees (which consume pollen), but the few that were mainly pollinated by hummingbirds and butterflies tended to have fewer scent compounds. Since birds and butterflies are there for the nectar and not the pollen, it would make sense that the pollen of these plant species wouldn’t need to carry a scent.

bee collecting pollen (image credit: wikimedia commons)

In flowers that are wind-pollinated, the pollenkitt layer is either very thin or absent altogether. In this case, pollen grains need to be easily released from the anther and are better off when they aren’t sticking to other pollen grains. That way, they are free to be carried off in the breeze to nearby flowers. Some plant species are amphiphilous, meaning they can be both animal-pollinated and wind-pollinated, and according to the authors of the paper published in Flora (2005), pollenkitt layers in these species exhibit intermediate characteristics of both types of pollen grains, generally with thinner, less-sticky pollenkitt and more pollenkitt found within the cavities of the exine.

It’s clear that this unique pollen-glueing substance plays a critical role in the pollination process for many plant species. Considering that each species of plant has its own story to tell, there is still more to learn about the forms and functions that pollenkitt takes.

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This is the first in a series of posts in 2024 in which, once again, I am exploring the world of pollinators and pollination. You can read more about this effort in last month’s Year in Review post.

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Winter Trees and Shrubs: Sweetgum

Sweetgum is a distinctive tree at any time of year. It stands out among most other deciduous trees with its excurrent growth habit, which gives it a narrowly conical or pyramidal shape. Only in its advanced age does it begin to develop a more rounded and irregular form. Its leaves are star-shaped with either five or seven lobes and span between four and seven inches. Their glossy green color gives way to a wide range of colors in the fall, including yellow, orange, red, and maroon, remaining on the tree for several weeks depending on weather conditions. The fruits are particularly distinct, especially in the winter after the leaves have dropped. Woody balls made up of a series of capsules with pointed beaks hang from long stalks throughout the winter, windborne seeds having been released from small openings in the fall. Without even bothering to look at the twigs, seeing these durable, spiky balls hanging from branches (or feeling them under your feet) is a quick indication that you are looking at a sweetgum.

one of many fall colors found on sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua)

Liquidamabar styraciflua (one of the funnest botanical names to say) was previously placed in the family Hamamelidaceae but is now one of the few members of Altingiaceae. Its natural distribution is broad, covering a large portion of the eastern United States and west into Missouri then down into Texas, Mexico, and much of Central America. Outside of its natural range it has been widely planted as an ornamental, and there are several popular sweetgum cultivars currently in cultivation. Both the common and botanical names for this tree refer to the resin found in its bark, which historically has had many uses.

The winter twigs of sweetgum are stout, round, smooth, and yellow-brown to green or olive-green to brown-purple in color. They can also be glossy and feature a few scattered lenticels. Older twigs (or branchlets) are brown at first and then light grey with dark grey lenticels. They are occasionally adorned with corky wings similar to those of bur oak. Because the wings aren’t always present, it can be a fun thing to encounter when you are out looking at twigs.

corky wings on the branchlets of sweetgum

The winter buds of sweetgum twigs are egg-shaped and made up of bud scales with acute tips and ciliate margins. They are green to orange-brown or reddish in color and occasionally sticky. Lateral buds are alternately arranged, are much smaller than terminal buds, and are stalkless and flattened against the twig. They sit above a slightly raised leaf scar that is half-elliptical to triangular in shape and has three distinct vascular bundle traces. The pith of sweetgum twigs is solid, continuous, brownish, and irregularly shaped.

winter twig of sweetgum tree

Sweetgum bark is light to dark grey and is made up of a series of rough, vertically arranged, scaly ridges that become deeply furrowed with age. The mace-like fruits of sweetgum are about one inch wide and, at a glance, are similar in appearance to the seed balls of sycamore trees; however, sycamore seed balls easily break apart when compressed, while the pointed, woody capsules that make up a sweetgum ball are held firmly together and can hold their shape for long periods of time. When these “gumballs” collect on the ground below, they can become a hazard, especially where there is lots of foot traffic. Speaking from experience, they are also obnoxious when operating a mower. This polarizing feature has resulted in bad opinions of the sweetgum tree. Luckily, some people are out there defending it.

sweetgum bark
the persistent fruits of sweetgum

More Winter Trees and Shrubs:

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2023: Year in Review

Things were pretty quiet on the blog in 2023, and I apologize for that. I have no excuses really. It’s just life. Fewer posts doesn’t mean I’m any less committed to writing and sharing about plants since the day I started this project, it’s more about quality over quantity. I would never want this to become a half-hearted affair, so even if months go by without hearing from me, just know that there are great things in the works, which I hope will be worth the wait.

Recently, while writing an article for Wildflower magazine, I came across this giant tome, Pollination and Floral Ecology by Pat Willmer. The previous year I had read Jeff Ollerton’s book, Pollinators and Pollination, and really got a lot out of it. These incredible resources on the science of pollination reminded me of a time early in Awkward Botany’s history in which I spent a year posting about pollination. I called it Year of Pollination, and by the time the year came to a close, I was struck by how much I still wanted to share about this topic. So now, armed with these new resources, I think it’s time for Another Year of Pollination.

In 2024, I plan on posting another series of pollinator and pollination themed posts. I may not be able to match what I accomplished in 2015, but I will aim for at least one a month. Just something to look forward to in the coming year.

If this entices you enough to continue to follow Awkward Botany (or to start), please do. Relevant links are here on my linktree. Awkward Botany can be found on a number of different social media platforms, but there are a few that I am more active on than others. With the fall of Twitter, I have moved on to other things. This is where you can find me most often at this point in time:

And now here are links to posts from 2023’s paltry selection that are part of ongoing series. Happy 2024! Fill it with plants!

Winter Trees and Shrubs

Tea Time

Weeds of Boise

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Weeds of Boise: Boise State University Campus, part two

In part one of this two part series, I introduced you to the Boise State University campus, located in the heart of Boise, Idaho. I’ve been spending the past year walking the campus and cataloging the weeds that I find there. Boise has a fairly mild climate compared to the rest of Idaho, so weeds are generally easy to find just about any time of year. What weeds are present depends on what time of year it is. To get a complete picture of the suite of weeds that can be found on a site, it’s important to make observations throughout the year. Weeds can also come and go, with certain species becoming more abundant in some years than others, so making observations over multiple years also helps. This is why I try to update posts that are part of the Weeds of Boise series as I make return visits and encounter additional weed species.

What follows is the second half of the list of weeds I’ve documented so far at Boise State University. I’m including a photograph for each month of the year (July – December), as well as a list of what I’ve encountered up to this point. I’m also including a list of weeds that I didn’t come across but that are documented on iNaturalist.

birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) at BSU in July 2023
yellow nutsedge (Cyperus esculentus) at BSU in August 2023
velvetleaf (Abutilon theophrasti) at BSU in September 2023
chicory (Cichorium intybus) at BSU on October 2023
puncturevine (Tribulus terrestris) at BSU in November 2023
bull thistle (Cirsium vulgare) at BSU in December 2023

Additional weeds found on the BSU campus from July – December 2023:

  • Abutilon theophrasti (velvetleaf)
  • Cichorium intybus (chicory)
  • Cirsium vulgare (bull thistle)
  • Cyperus esculentus (yellow nutsedge)
  • Eragrostis cilianensis (stinking lovegrass)
  • Lotus corniculatus (birdsfoot trefoil)
  • Medicago sativa (alfalfa)
  • Melilotus alba (white sweetclover)
  • Solanum nigrum (black nightshade)
  • Sonchus asper (prickly sowthistle)
  • Tribulus terrestris (puncturevine)

Additional weeds observed on the BSU campus by iNaturalist users as of December 2023:

  • Aegilops cylindrica (jointed goatgrass)
  • Bromus diandrus (ripgut brome)
  • Cerastium nutans (nodding chickweed)
  • Chorispora tenella (blue mustard)
  • Elymus repens (quackgrass)
  • Hypericum perforatum (St. John’s wort)
  • Lepidium perfoliatum (clasping pepperweed)
  • Matricaria discoidea (pineappleweed)
  • Ornithogalum umbellatum (star-of-Bethlehem)
  • Vicia tetrasperma (four-seeded vetch)
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Tea Time: Fireweed

lf you’ve seen one fireweed, you’ve probably seen several. As an early successional species, growing in large numbers across a vast amount of space is kind of its thing. Any disturbance that leaves bare ground in its wake, such as a wildfire or a windstorm, gives fireweed the opportunity to colonize. It grows quickly and spreads via rhizomes, producing thousands of airborne seeds in the process, sending them off to continue colonization or contribute to soil seed banks in preparation for future disturbances. The role of plants like fireweed is vital – promptly covering bare ground to stave off erosion and acting as a nurse plant to new saplings destined to become the future forest. In a garden setting or in locations where aggressively spreading plants are discouraged, fireweed and its weedy behavior may be unwelcome, but in other contexts, its services are essential.

fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium)

Fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium) is a species in Onagraceae, commonly known as the evening primrose family. It has an impressive distribution, widespread across much of North America and Eurasia. This is owed largely to its adaptability. Deep shade and overly dry soil are two conditions that it does not tolerate well, otherwise it seems to grow in a wide variety of soil types, moisture levels, and sun exposures, particularly in areas where there is regular disturbance. Swaths of towering plants topped with rose-pink flower spikes make fireweed impossible to ignore and a favorite of wildflower enthusiasts.

Fireweed stems reach from three to nine feet tall and are rarely branched. Long, narrow, lance-shaped leaves are arranged alternately along the lengths of stems and give the plant a willow-like appearance, which explains another common name, rosebay willowherb. The undersides of leaves have a distinct venation pattern, in which the veins don’t reach the leaf margins, a feature that can help with identification.

distinct leaf veins of fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium)

A series of rose-pink to purple flowers top the stems of fireweed. Each flower has four sepals and four petals with eight stamens and a four-lobed stigma extending prominently from the center. Its long, narrow ovary can be confused for a flower stalk. Rich with nectar, fireweed flowers are a favorite of honeybee keepers. They are also edible, like much of the rest of the plant. Narrow, four-chambered capsules form in place of fertilized flowers and later split open to release abundant, small seeds with a tuft of fluff attached to each one to aid in wind dispersal.

Fireweed has a long history of being used as food and medicine. Stem fibers are also useful for making cord, and seed fluff is useful for weaving and padding. Certainly, fireweed’s abundance and ubiquity contribute to its utility. Having never eaten fireweed before, I decided that a good way to introduce it to my diet would be to make a tea. Fireweed leaves are commonly collected for tea and are said to make an excellent non-caffeinated replacement for black tea.

fireweed tea leaves

Making fireweed tea starts by stripping young leaves from fireweed stems. Recipes I encountered all called for fermenting the leaves before drying them. I did this by squeezing handfuls of leaves in my fists just enough to break and bruise them a bit and then packing them into a quart size Mason jar. I closed the lid tight and kept them in the jar for about five days, shaking it up a couple times a day supposedly to help prevent mold issues. After that, I dried the leaves on a baking sheet in the hot sun. From there, they are ready for making tea the same way you would make any other loose leaf tea, chopping the leaves up a bit before immersing them in hot water.

I found the taste of fireweed tea to be mild and pleasant. Despite several sources comparing it to black tea, I thought it was more similar to green tea. Sierra liked the smell more than the taste and wished it had honey in it. Compared to other teas I’ve tried in this short series of posts, this is definitely one of the better ones, and a tea I could see myself making again sometime.

More Tea Time Posts on Awkward Botany:

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Weeds of Boise: Boise State University Campus, part one

If you live in a major city (or even a minor one), there is a good chance it is home to a college or university (perhaps several). Universities tend to take up a lot of space, which means there is often a plethora of landscaping accompanying their buildings, hardscaping, and other impervious surfaces. Among all the turf, flower beds, tree wells, and other greenspaces, there is bound to be a fair share of weeds. In spite of how hard the groundskeepers may work, the campus is not likely to ever be completely weed-free. Lucky for us, this means that institutions of higher learning are excellent places to familiarize ourselves with many of the weed species that occur in our cities, particularly weeds that are common in garden beds and turfgrass.

Near downtown Boise, on the southside of the Boise River, you will find the ever-expanding campus of Boise State University, home of the Broncos and their famous blue turf. According to the internet’s favorite encyclopedia, the campus is 285 acres in size, plenty of space for weeds to grow and abudant opportunities to hunt them out. Tallying the number of weed species in a place like this takes time. The benefit of botanizing for weeds is that you can find them at just about any time of year. While some species only show up in certain seasons, others can be seen practically year-round.

In order to document the weeds of Boise State University, I’m spending the entire year walking the campus listing and photographing the weeds I find. What follows is the first half of what’s been documented so far. I’m including a photograph for each month of the year, as well as a list of what I’ve encountered. In part two, I’ll share a list of any additional weeds found throughout the remainder of the year. While you’re waiting for that, check out the other posts in the Weeds of Boise series.

common groundsel (Senecio vulgaris) at BSU in January 2023
chickweed (Stellaria media) at BSU in February 2023
hairy bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta) at BSU in March 2023
ivyleaf speedwell (Veronica hederifolia) at BSU in April 2023
black medic (Medicago lupulina) at BSU in May 2023
creeping thistle (Cirsium arvense) at BSU in June 2023

List of weeds found on the campus of Boise State University as of June 2023:

  • Ailanthus altissima (tree of heaven)
  • Anthriscus caucalis (bur chervil)
  • Amaranthus retroflexus (redroot pigweed)
  • Arctium minus (lesser burdock)
  • Bassia scoparia (kochia)
  • Bromus tectorum (cheatgrass)
  • Capsella bursa-pastoris (shepherd’s purse)
  • Cardamine hirsuta (hairy bittercress)
  • Ceratocephala testiculata (bur buttercup)
  • Chenopodium album (lamb’s quarters)
  • Chondrilla juncea (rush skeletonweed)
  • Cirsium arvense (creeping thistle)
  • Claytonia perfoliata (miner’s lettuce)
  • Convolvulus arvensis (field bindweed)
  • Conyza canadensis (horseweed)
  • Descurainia sophia (flixweed)
  • Digitaria sanguinalis (crabgrass)
  • Draba verna (spring draba)
  • Epilobium ciliatum (willowherb)
  • Erodium cicutarium (redstem filare)
  • Euphorbia maculata (spotted spurge)
  • Galium aparine (cleavers)
  • Geum urbanum (herb Bennet)
  • Holosteum umbellatum (jagged chickweed)
  • Hordeum jubatum (foxtail barley)
  • Lactuca serriola (prickly lettuce)
  • Lamium purpureum (purple deadnettle)
  • Lepidium sp. (whitetop)
  • Malva neglecta (common mallow)
  • Medicago lupulina (black medic)
  • Oxalis corniculata (creeping woodsorrel)
  • Parthenocissus quinquefolia (Virginia creeper)
  • Plantago lanceolata (narrowleaf plantain)
  • Plantago major (broadleaf plantain)
  • Poa annua (annua bluegrass)
  • Poa bulbosa (bulbous bluegrass)
  • Polygonum aviculare (prostrate knotweed)
  • Portulaca oleracea (purslane)
  • Prunella vulgaris (self-heal)
  • Ranunculus repens (creeping buttercup)
  • Senecio vulgaris (common groundsel)
  • Sonchus sp. (sow thistle)
  • Stellaria media (chickweed)
  • Taraxacum officinale (dandelion)
  • Tragopogon dubius (salsify)
  • Trifolium repens (white clover)
  • Ulmus pumila (Siberian elm)
  • Veronica hederifolia (ivyleaf speedwell)
  • Vulpia myuros (rat’s tail fescue)

Do you frequent the BSU campus? Have you seen anything not on my list? Comment below or send me a message and let me know what you’ve seen and where.

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Getting to Know a Grass – Basic Anatomy and Identification

Have you ever tried to identify a grass? Most of us who like to look at plants and learn their names will probably admit that we often give up on grasses pretty quickly, or just ignore them entirely. They aren’t the easiest plants to identify to species, and there are so many of them. Without close inspection, they can all look pretty similar. Their flowers aren’t particularly showy, and their fruits are fairly forgettable. They are strands or clumps of green that create a backdrop for more intriguing forms of vegetation. Yet, they are among the most ecologically and economically important groups of plants on the planet. And actually, if you can ascend the hurdles that come with getting to know them, they are beautiful organisms and really quite amazing.

Kōura in the Grass

The grass family – Poaceae – consists of nearly 8oo genera and about 12,000 species. Grasses occur in a wide range of habitats across the globe. Wherever you are on land, a grass is likely nearby. Grasses play vital roles in their ecosystems and, from a human perspective, are critical to life as we know it. We grow them for food, use them for building materials and fuel, plant them as ornamentals, and rely on them for erosion control, storm water management, and other ecosystem services. We may not acknowledge their presence most of the time, but we very likely wouldn’t be here without them.

The sheer number of grass species is one thing that makes them so difficult to identify. Key identifying features of grasses and grass-like plants (also known as graminoids) tend to be very small and highly modified compared to similar features on other flowering plants. This requires using a hand lens and learning a whole new vocabulary in order to begin to understand a grass’s anatomy. It’s a time commitment that goes beyond a lot of other basic plant identification, and it’s a learning curve that few dare to follow. However, once you learn the basic features, it becomes clear that grasses are relatively simple organisms, and once you start identifying them, it can actually be an exciting and rewarding experience.

Quackgrass (Elymus repens) and Its Rhizome

Depending on the species, grasses can be annuals – completing their life cycle within a single year – or perennials – coming back year after year for two or more years. Most grasses have a fibrous root system; some are quite shallow and simple while others are extremely deep and extensive. Some species of perennial grasses spread by either rhizomes (underground stems), stolons (horizontal, above ground stems), or both. Some grasses also produce tillers, which are essentially daughter plants that form at the base of the plant. The area where roots, rhizomes, stolons, and tillers meet the shoots and leaves of a grass plant is called the crown. This is an important region of the plant, because it allows for regrowth even after the plant has been browsed by a grazing animal or mown down by a lawn mower.

The stem or shoot of a grass is called a culm. Leaves are formed along the lengths of culms, and culms terminate in inflorescences. Leaves originate at swollen sections of the culm called nodes. They start by wrapping around the culm and forming what is called a leaf sheath. Leaves of grasses are generally long and narrow with parallel venation – a trait typical of monocotyledons. The part of the leaf that extends away from the culm is called the leaf blade or lamina. Leaves are alternatively arranged along the length of the stem and are two-ranked, meaning they form two distinct rows opposite of each other along the stem.

The area where the leaf blade meets the leaf sheath on the culm is called the collar. This collar region is important for identifying grasses. With the help of a hand lens, a closer look reveals the way in which the leaf wraps around the culm (is it open or closed?), whether or not there are hairs present and what they are like, if there are auricles (small flaps of leaf tissue at the top of the collar), and what the ligule is like. The ligule is a thin membrane (sometimes a row of hairs) that forms around the culm where the leaf blade and leaf sheath intersect. The size of the ligule and what its margin is like can be very helpful in identifying grasses.

The last leaf on the culm before the inflorescence is called the flag leaf, and the section of the culm between the flag leaf and the inflorescence is called a peduncle. Like the collar, the flower head of a grass is where you’ll find some of the most important features for identification. Grass flowers are tiny and arranged in small groupings called spikelets. In general, several dozen or hundreds of spikelets make up an inflorescence. They can be non-branching and grouped tightly together at the top of the culm, an inflorescence referred to as a spike, or they can extend from the tip of the culm (or rachis) on small branches called pedicels, an inflorescence referred to as a raceme. They can also be multi-branched, which is the most common form of grass inflorescence and is called a panicle.

Either way, you will want to take an even closer look at the individual spikelets. Two small bracts, called glumes, form the base of the spikelet. Above the glumes are a series of florets, which are enclosed in even smaller bracts – the outer bract being the lemma and the inner bract being the palea. Certain features of the glumes, lemmas, and paleas are specific to a species of grass. This includes the way they are shaped, the presence of hairs, their venation, whether or not awns are present and what the awns are like, etc. If the grass species is cleistogamous – like cheatgrass – and the florets never open, you will not get a look at the grass’s sex parts. However, a close inspection of an open floret is always a delight. A group of stamens protrude from their surrounding bracts bearing pollen, while feathery stigmas reach out to collect the pollen that is carried on the wind. Depending on the species, an individual grass floret can have either only stamens, only pistils (the stigma bearing organs), or both. Fertilized florets form fruits. The fruit of a grass is called a caryopsis (with a few exceptions) and is indistinguishable from the seed. This is because the seed coat is fused to the wall of the ovary, unlike other fruit types in which the two are separate and distinct.

If all this doesn’t make you want to run outside and take a close look at some grasses, I don’t know what will. What grasses can you identify in your part of the world? Let me know in the comment section below or check out the linktree and get in touch by the means that suits you best.