Please identify Colville River flower with long anthers

Discussion in 'Plants: Identification' started by Dickie Byrd, Nov 24, 2007.

  1. Dickie Byrd

    Dickie Byrd Active Member

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    I took several hundred pictures of flowers on a trip down the Colville River. I have been doing pretty good at naming them, but every now and then one stumps me. I tried Phlox, but this flower is singular rather than in clusters at the head of a stem. Saxifrage have long anthers, but it's about the only thing in common with this flower. The yellow cups are last years seed pods of this flower. You can see the old stalks of Mountain Dryas in the picture also.
     

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  2. abgardeneer

    abgardeneer Active Member

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    They look to me like dianthus... introduced, perhaps?
     
  3. Robert Flogaus-Faust

    Robert Flogaus-Faust Active Member 10 Years

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    Silene acaulis?

    This looks very much like moss campion (Silene acaulis) even though this species usually (but certainly not always) grows in dense mats.
     
  4. Ron B

    Ron B Paragon of Plants 10 Years

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  5. Dickie Byrd

    Dickie Byrd Active Member

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    Thank you Ron. I have checked the Google images but have not found that flower yet. I do not think it is Moss Campion. I am very familiar with that flower. They do not have the real long anthers and the folage is wrong. My unknown plant has long, narrow basil leaves. It almost looks like they occure in groups of 3. Definately not the Moss Campion I am familiar with.
     
  6. Dickie Byrd

    Dickie Byrd Active Member

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    Re: Silene acaulis?

    I want to be sure and thank you also Robert. See my reply to Ron B as to why I think it is not the Moss Campion.
     
  7. Dickie Byrd

    Dickie Byrd Active Member

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    Thank you for your input abgardeneer. Yours did create a lot of work for me. I found three Dianthus that came close, but some prime structure of the flower or plant seemed to always be wrong.
    The plant could have been introduced. But the picture was taken in the most remote area you can find in the whole United States. It is in the northwest quadurant of Alaska with the nearest city, (Anchorage), 400 miles distant. The nearest Native Village is over 70 miles away and to the north. Just getting here is expensive and I am sure all the flora in this area has not yet been identified or catalogues.
     
  8. Robert Flogaus-Faust

    Robert Flogaus-Faust Active Member 10 Years

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    Moss campion is extremely variable. According to Gustav Hegi's "Illustrierte Flora von Mitteleuropa" (Vol. III, part 2, 2nd edition, 1979) the leaves of the European specimens of Silene acaulis agg. may be linear - awl-shaped or narrowly lanceolate. My photographs usually show rather broadly lanceolate leaves. My photograph (with some rather long anthers) is from Switzerland and might show ssp. exscapa or ssp. acaulis or most likely some intermediate. There are specimens with narrower leaves, however, as you can see from the scanned drawing which is from the "Handbok of the British Flora" [1865; author: George Bentham (1800 - 1884)]. The drawing should have been made by Walter Hood Fitch (1817 - 1892). Please also compare the B.C. "e-flora" (http://linnet.geog.ubc.ca/Atlas/Atl...s var. subacaulescens&redblue=Both&lifeform=7). There are also some drawings with rather long leaves in Hegi's flora (which I cannot show here because they are probably still copyrighted). According to Gustav Hegi's flora the leaves may be up to 12 mm long and the plants up to 3 cm high in central Europe and the usually rather dense mats of the plant may be looser and less typical in rather moist habitats. The same appears to be true for var. (or ssp.) subcaulescens which is native to the Pacific Northwest. The stems may be even longer (up to 6 or even 15 cm!) according to the B.C. e-flora and up to 15 mm long. So you might reconsider the possibility of somewhat atypical moss campion before thinking about more unlikely alternatives such as the discovery of a new species or even a Dianthus species.
     

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  9. Dickie Byrd

    Dickie Byrd Active Member

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    I sure do want to thank you Robert. I thought all Moss Campion were cushions of pretty pink flowers. All the books I have seen and the pictures show them that way. (I need to get me some newer and more detailed books instead of these tourist flower ID things with pretty pictures in them.) (grin)
    Your scanned photograph appears to be the same flower. The flower pedals are the same, the long anthers are the same, and the old seed pods are exactly the same between the two photographs. I will not spend some time looking at the ssp's you have suggest and seeing if the mentioned books happen to be in one of the two libraries I have available, (city of Fairbanks and the University of Alaska).

    Although I was in the most remote place in the whole United States, almost all the flowers I saw were ones I have seen on alpine summits around Fairbanks with only a few exceptions. And those were mostly close the Arctic coast. I would be very surprised if I actually did discover a new species. The odds are a bit better than around Fairbanks, but still very unlikely.

    Thank you for you time and trouble. I really do appreciate it.

    Dickie
     
  10. Ron B

    Ron B Paragon of Plants 10 Years

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    Yours isn't a solid cushion because it's mixed with the other creeping plants in the picture.
     

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