Hello to my UBC Botanical Garden friends. It's summer and once again one of our wildflower species has stumped me. Can any one help me identify this little beauty. It is about 3 to 4 inches tall, growing in wet ground next to an old 4-wheeler road beside a small creek. The picture was taken May 29, 2009. I have included 2 pictures to help get this identified. (I was told if it has four pedals it belongs to the mustard family.) Thank you Dickie
I wonder whether this plant might be from the Arabis genus. Fruits might be very helpful. Anyway there seem to be fairly few Arabis species in northwestern America which haven't got stem clasping leaves. This plant reminds me of the mustard family plant which I found in Manning Park in British Columbia (see the thread http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=16536). At the moment I believe that my photographs might show Arabis kamchatica because the flowers were not so big and Arabis lyrata s. str. should not occur in a mountain area. The plant from the current thread has also got some prominently toothed or pinnately cleft basal leaves. So it might actually be the same, but I'd not bet on it.
Hello Robert. I see I have a tough one one my hands. I read through your post and all the replies. I think we have the same, at least very close to the same, plants here. My pictures were taken on an old 4-wheeler trail on very wet ground. They were not growing in water, but when I knelt on the ground to get the picture I did get pretty wet. It was in a valley about 150 feet wide, a creek hidden by brush was flowing nearby, the soil was a little bit rocky where the flower was growing, (there were 3 plants from 3 to 10 feet apart), and the ground outside where the plants were growing was acidic and mostly on permfrost. Just so I have a name to tag the pictures with I will use Arabis lyrata s. str. for now. In the meantime I will do some more looking. I'll post it here if I find any new information. Thanks a lot for your help
Thank you Brian. On your suggestion I looked up Draba. The descriptions I found and all the pictures I found ruled out Draba because of the leaf placement and/or leaf structure. I am pretty confident that I have Arabis, but just which species of Arabis is pretty darned hard to distinguish until I can get my hands on some seed pods. I know where these flowers are located and they are not that far from my home. The only thing preventing me from getting some seed pods will be my remembering to do that in a month or two.
--------------------------- Robert - I have to give up on this plant right now because I am off on a 3-week canoe trip down the Yukon River. But upon futher research I have decided to just simply call this Arabis. Looking more closely at A. lyrata the leaf is not the same. A. kamchatica I ruled out because the flowers on my plant appear to be much smaller and the A. kamchatica did not have any stem-clasping leaves in the pictures I found. I have not given up yet. After this summer's activities I will look into this some more.
Thank you Ron. I have a lady I have contacted before and it looks like I am going to have to go that route again. But we are beginning our summer time activities. I will look into this more when we get into next winter (and the outside temperatures makes working on the computer much more pleasant). (grin) Also, I hope to have some fruit from this plant to look at by then.
I am astonished that there were actually stem clasping leaves. I cannot see any on you photographs. The flowers of Arabis kamchatica are supposed to be smaller than those of Arabis lyrata s. str. To make things worse some people appear to have moved Arabis lyrata agg. to the genus Arabidopsis.
