I found this Lousewort in Alberta this July but I'm having difficulty identifying it. If anybody knows what it is I would appreciate that information. I found it growing alongside elephant-head lousewort in a wet, grassy area. Thanks. Josh I've been searching reference books as well as online for months and keep coming up empty handed. I thought I might have had a new species for a while and after I put some pictures up on this forum my suspicions have strengthened. <mod note: merged threads, so this was a reference to an earlier, now-merged thread> If anyone could help identify it or has information on how to officially describe a species it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Re: New Species in Pedicularis? First thing to do is collect some herbarium specimens (with location data) and send them to any acknowledged experts in the genus. Note: larger copies of Josh's photos in this thread: http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=66422
How close was this to a border with another province / state? It'd be helpful if there were additional images with leaves, an idea of height, and whether the plants were branching or not... First go-round via the Flora of Alberta didn't turn up anything immediately.
Hey Daniel. Thank you for helping me with this. I took those pictures outside of a small town between Jasper and Edmonton called Whitecourt, so no borders nearby. I found it growing amongst Pedicularis groenlandica and there were three distinct differences that caught my attention to a second species of Pedicularis in that location. The first was the colour of the flowers, stem and leaves. With groenlandica everything is a purplish red, but this was all green. The second was that the height of the plant I found was 5-10 cm taller than any of the groenlandica. The third and most obvious was the shape of the flower. Even though the inflorescence was the same shape and size the individual flowers were different. Other than that I don't think they differ much to the naked eye. If it wasn't for the colour being different I wouldn't have looked twice. The only reason I didn't pass it off as some sort of colour varient was that it's flowers were so different. I know that groenlandica is a root parasite. I was thinking that maybe because they were growing in the same area they might share the same or similar host plants. If you need any other info don't hesitate to ask. Thank you.
I see what you mean. I took a closer look and compared it with a picture I took of P. groenlandica. I noticed that the calyx was green on the specimen I found and each flower on the spike had a more pronounced leaf than on normal P. groenlandica. I also noticed that on the more mature specimen the new fore-mentioned leaves had more purple on their tips than the less developed ones. I know I don't have any pictures of the leaves separate from the inflorescence but they were completely green. I was also wondering if it made a difference that there were several of both varieties in a wide area? I found both species in an area with a 20 meter diameter.
Next thing to do is collect some seed from both types in the area, and see if they breed true or not. If the seed of mutant plants yields some (or all) normal-flowered progeny and vice-versa, then the mutation is minor; if they always breed true, then you've hit gold. Also look more widely to see where the mutation occurs; look over a 20 kilometre area, rather than just 20 metres. In a 20 metre area, it could just be a single individual which is spreading vegetatively.
