mustard family plant from Manning Park

Discussion in 'Plants: Identification' started by Robert Flogaus-Faust, Jul 16, 2006.

  1. Robert Flogaus-Faust

    Robert Flogaus-Faust Active Member 10 Years

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    I found this mustard family plant on June 8, 2006 on beaver pond loop trail in Manning Park. Weather was not too bright, i. e. it was raining. So quality of my photographs was not so good. Does someone know this plant anyway and tell me what it is?
     

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  2. wild-rose-43

    wild-rose-43 Active Member

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    Not sure what type but it looks like a Cardamine too me.
     
  3. Robert Flogaus-Faust

    Robert Flogaus-Faust Active Member 10 Years

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    and which species?

    Hi Rose,

    thanks for your opinion because mustard family plants do not seem to be very popular in this forum. But I have thought about Cardamine and I still cannot figure out which Cardamine species the plant could be. So which species have you got in mind? Or is it something completely different? Robert.
     
  4. wild-rose-43

    wild-rose-43 Active Member

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    I was looking at Cardamine cordifolia, the flowers look right but the leaves don't seem to be the same. I could be way off base!
     
  5. Robert Flogaus-Faust

    Robert Flogaus-Faust Active Member 10 Years

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    Hi Rose,
    I do not believe that it was Cardamine cordifolia for the reason that you mentioned. The stem leave do not match. And actually the basal leaves were rather small. The habitat was near to a stream and it was at about 1300 to 1350 m elevation (i. e. very close to Manning Park Resort) but it grew near the edge of a wide footpath where vegetation did not look very natural. So I rather suppose I got some weedy species here. Robert.
     
  6. Daniel Mosquin

    Daniel Mosquin Paragon of Plants UBC Botanical Garden Forums Administrator Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    I've had a look through the Brassicaceae in "The Plants of Manning Park" by Underhill, and didn't find a perfect match, either. Nor did I find anything I'd be comfortable suggesting from the Illustrated Flora of BC. Can the size of the photo showing the basal leaves be uploaded with a larger version?
     
  7. Robert Flogaus-Faust

    Robert Flogaus-Faust Active Member 10 Years

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    Hi,
    here are two enlarged images. The one that is largest is the size I got the image from the camera. Unfortunately quality is very limited. Robert.
     

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  8. Daniel Mosquin

    Daniel Mosquin Paragon of Plants UBC Botanical Garden Forums Administrator Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    A real head-scratcher. I'm not finding anything that's a match.
     
  9. wild-rose-43

    wild-rose-43 Active Member

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    Hmmm. . .
     
  10. wrygrass2

    wrygrass2 Active Member 10 Years

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    Problem lies in shear number of possibilities in Brassicaceae. Both the number of genera and the number of species in many genera. Needs a mature fruit to really pin it down I would think. There might be one in first flower picture, or that might be a bud? The long flat leaf petiole almost rules out Cardamine, I whould think though save perhaps C. bellidifolia, or C. constancei. And the pink petals in the latter would seem to rule that out, lest the white petals are a photographic artifact. Harry
     
  11. Robert Flogaus-Faust

    Robert Flogaus-Faust Active Member 10 Years

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    Hi Harry,
    I know that Brassicaceae is not the easiest family but I do not believe the problem with my plant is that there are too many similar species but rather that we haven't been able to find even a single species from this family so far that really looks sufficiently similar to my plant.
    The fruits on the first image are from my plant. I do not believe, however, that the fruits can be considered mature.
    Cardamine constancei is supposed to be an Idaho endemic plant with pink petals. So this is not likely even though some of the petals of my plant look very slightly pink, especially near the base. When I took the photographs I thought that they all were completely white but I was probably wrong.
    Cardamine bellidifolia might be possible but the image in the "Illustrated Flora of British Columbia" looks quite different and my plant has too many stem leaves for this species.
    The species among those that are known from B. C. which looks most similar to my plant might be lyre-leaved rockcress (Arabis lyrata) in fact. It is supposed to be a lowland species and petals are supposed to be very pink in most cases, but even though the basal leaves look somewhat different on most images I guess that it is the closest match I know. So what do you (not just Harry, but all the readers) think about my suggestion or have you got a better idea, possibly an introduced species that is so new in B. C. that it is not in the floras yet?
    Thanks, Robert.
     
  12. Daniel Mosquin

    Daniel Mosquin Paragon of Plants UBC Botanical Garden Forums Administrator Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    I'd also considered the Arabis, but discounted it because of ecology.

    Considering that Manning is fairly well-traveled, I wonder if it might be some errant seedling from a birdseed mix? People aren't supposed to feed the birds, but they do in reality... How large was the population of plants?
     
  13. Robert Flogaus-Faust

    Robert Flogaus-Faust Active Member 10 Years

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    The population may have been very small (possibly less than 5 plants even though I did not count them). I just found the plant on a single spot and when I walked away for a short time I had some difficulty finding it again. So I also suppose that the plant might be unusual in this area. I do not completely remember but I think there was some area heavily influenced by humans nearby (possibly the road) and it might have also come in with construction work. The horsetails (Equisetum arvense, I suppose) growing nearby would also be rather typical for a roadside.
     
  14. wrygrass2

    wrygrass2 Active Member 10 Years

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    When talking about possible mature fruit, I was referring to img6.jpg. Is the round thing on a stalk to the right of the stem possibly a mature fruit? It is below the blooms so I would think that would make it a fruit in Brassicaceae, not a bud. Or is it a different flower part entirely? My eyesight leaves a lot to be desired these days.

    I do think that it is probably something other than Cardamine, or if it is Cardamine it is a recently introduced species as you have proposed. Many species of this family has been intoduced so the possibilities are still pretty numerous. Harry
     
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2006
  15. Robert Flogaus-Faust

    Robert Flogaus-Faust Active Member 10 Years

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    buds and fruits

    Hi Harry,
    the "round thing" is a flower bud. So apparently the upper flowers bloom first in this species (see image below). It couldn't be a fruit anyway because the fruits are very much longer than wide as you can see in the young fruit in img6a.jpg, the second image on top of this thread. Robert.
     

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  16. Gordo

    Gordo Active Member 10 Years

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    One member of Brassicaceae not mentioned so far is Thlaspi. Any possibility this could be T. montanum (mountain pennycress) or closely related plant?
     
  17. Robert Flogaus-Faust

    Robert Flogaus-Faust Active Member 10 Years

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    unfortunately this is not Thlaspi

    It cannot be Thlaspi montanum or any other Thlaspi species because Thlaspi has a characteristic shape of the fruit in which length and width are similar. In my case the fruits are very much longer than wide. So it is not Thlaspi montanum or any other Thlaspi. See e. g. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Thlaspi_montanum_Sturm27.jpg for the shape of the fruits of Thlaspi montanum.
     
  18. wrygrass2

    wrygrass2 Active Member 10 Years

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    Hi,

    Brassicaceae for the most part has indeterminate inflorescences so that might be a search point to try narrow down to the genus, as this as you say appears to be determinate.

    Also some fruits in Brassicaceae start out thin and narrow and end up with larger, wider fruit; hence the need to see mature fruit to narrow it to a genera. Harry
     
  19. Robert Flogaus-Faust

    Robert Flogaus-Faust Active Member 10 Years

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    Hi Harry,
    the genus likely is Arabis but I cannot rule out that it is something different. It is obvious that a key that requires mature fruits is not very useful for internet identification (and usually not even for outdoor identification). Nevertheless people who know certain species might well be able to identify them from a photograph or at least reduce the number of possible species to very few. I know that there are some exceptions but these are probably rarer than we might think. There is (just for example) a fairly rare species of bellflower in Germany that you cannot identify in most cases without digging it up. :-( And there are some species of Valerianella which can only be told apart by their fruits. But just that some key calls for mature fruits does not necessarily mean you actually need them.
    My problem is not narrowing down to a genus but finding one or several species that cannot be ruled out immediately.
    I still wonder whether my images could show Arabis lyrata, whether someone can rule out this species or whether there are any other suggestions. I am rather sure that I'll end up with a tentatively identified plant with a big question mark or with a completely unknown species. Robert.
     
  20. paion

    paion Active Member 10 Years

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    Just out of curiosity, which species of Campanula are you talking about?

    (Sorry for the off-topic post!)
     
  21. wrygrass2

    wrygrass2 Active Member 10 Years

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    Hi R-F-Faust,

    Your Arabis lyrata seems like a good choice, but I'm not familiar with the plant first hand. I thought the leaves were pinnatifid to begin with but that was hard to make out from the photos. Also I would have never made the leap from that fact to Arabis as all the local varieties are not pinnatifid. The lyre shaped leaves sure fit though.

    Problems with identification sometimes hinge on the minutest detail. The local indians used Camas as a staple and the bulbs were dug before the plant was in bloom. I have held both the bulbs in my hand and was hard pressed to tell the difference between Camas (Cammassia) and Death Camas (Zigadenus). Yet the indians had to be right the first time. :) I suppose when your life is on the line, the differences become much more apparent. Harry
     

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