I found this plant on first brigade trail, a trail that leads from the Fraser valley up to the mountains with a trailhead close to Alexandra lodge between Spuzzum and Boston Bar, on June 6, 2006. I remember that the plant grew close to a rocky open area but obviously the soil was not too rocky at the very spot where I took my photographs. Can you id this plant, please? I know that the photographs are not good because the background is too sharp but the plant was rather big and branched and I can enlarge parts of the images if this is required.
Possibly two different plants, flowering habit pictures resemble Geum urbanum. Basal foliage shot may be a Potentilla. Notice different shades of green between two sets.
Hi Ron, thank you for your answer. I don't think, however, that the pictures are from different species. The reason for the different shades of green could be the very different light conditions near the ground and near the (very light yellow, similar to Potentilla recta) flowers which required aperture adjustment of -2/3 on the picture (and ca. 1/320 s exposure time) with the flowers and none at all (with 1/50 s) for the basal leaves. Direct sunlight makes a lot of difference with respect to the shades of green. I know Geum urbanum from Germany and it looks very different. I also could not find this species in the "Illustrated Flora of British Columbia" which makes it extremely unlikely in this place which is far off from the nearest road. I added another picture of a specimen (aperture adjustment -1/3 in this case) where you can see some of the broad lower leaflets on the flowering stem and also a close up of the flowers (just a part of the previously shown flower image). Unfortunately I cannot recognize any glandular hairs on my images but I think that the images of Potentilla glandulosa in the "Illustrated Flora of British Columbia" look rather similar to my plant. Are there any reasonable suggestions what species the plant could be?
I didn't notice you mentioning Potentilla glandulosa in your reply, Robert, however, that is what I came up with as well. I agree, hard to tell if those hairs are glandular, though Ill'd Flora of BC states it can be a mixture of both glandular and non-glandular.
Hi Daniel, thank you very much for your opinion which makes Potentilla glandulosa (probably with a question mark) a very likely choice for the flower name. I do not believe that the long hairs are glandular but there are obviously numerous short ones which look very suspicious. But unfortunately the quality of my images is not high enough to really identify the glands (if they are there). I might have even touched the plant and it might have been sticky but I just do not remember because I found so many wildflower species that I had not known before on June 6. So I'll leave the question mark attached. And I'd be happy about additional comments or other opinions, of course, if there are any! Thanks again, Robert.
