Everyone can see the coordinates unless the taxon is threatened.
Obscured
Public coordinates shown as a random point within 10KM of the true coordinates. True coordinates are only visible to you and the curators of projects to which you add the observation.
private
Coordinates completely hidden from public maps, true coordinates only visible to you and the curators of projects to which you add the observation. Observations with private coordinates will still be used to verify place check lists.
Description
Out in the grasslands of Pepperwood Preserve, I saw a couple of these white flowers coming up. They were usually in sunny places with only a few other plants around them. They also had bugs crawling around on them, and I saw them all at least one other flower of the same type.
This actually looks like Mt. St. Helena Morning Glory (which is on CNPS's Rare and Endangered Plant List). This is excellent habitat (serpentine soils) for this plant species.
I just looked up Curious George's Calystegia collina oxyphylla's (non-research-grade) observation:
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/81736#comment-18167 It looks like he observed it in the same general location at Pepperwood that you did.
I consulted with Matthew (our botanist guest speaker, iNat name "Metridium2002") and he said:
It could also be C. malacophylla, occidentalis, purpurata, or subacaulis and that it's tough to tell from the photos.
Could you add this information so he/I can help ID it?
Are the bracts large and like the sepals?
How hairy is the plant?
How dense and thick are the hairs?
How long are the pedicels compared to the petioles?
I would love to answer the questions for you, but I have no idea what "Pedicels", "Petioles", "Bracts" "Sepals", ect are. I never learned those words. But the leaves were pretty hairy, and if you want, I have a really nice enlarged picture of the flower that I could email to you (The pictures on here come up smaller than the actual picture I can see on my computer)
Yes, please email the photo tonight (jbyrne@srcs.k12.ca.us) and I'll also email it to Matthew who is working on iNat tonight (AKA "Metridium2002").
You should have written down many of those vocabulary words during the perfect flower dissection and coloring (right after you learned about Mendel's pea plant experiments). Here is a general diagram: http://saylorplants.com/SaylorPlants/Ref_Info/Flower_001k_color_.JPG We did add "sepal" and "pedicel" to our diagram in 3rd period I believe.
Anyhow, I'll show you a more detailed flower diagram tomorrow if you don't have time to go online tonight.
Yeah we did learn those two words, but how am I supposed to compare them with words I don't know? And I'll just have to look at you more detailed photo tomorrow during class, because I have a bunch of other finals to study for, and more homework to do before I go to bed.
Courtney, your instincts are very good. Better than mine when I was a student. Also, botanical terms are very arcane. You probably won't get the hang of this until you take at least one university level course and work hard to memorize many strange words and concepts. But even I have to keep reference books literally within arm's reach because I can't remember all of it, so don't let it get to you. I've been studying botany for 20 years and I feel like I've only scratched the surface. Also, your descriptions are very helpful. You have a good eye for this. If you enjoy it, keep at it.
Calystegia is a tricky genus because most of the species in it look very similar. You can only tell them apart by looking very closely. So you know what I'm dealing with, here is the dichotomous key:
I'm less willing than other people on iNat to go out on a limb unless I can absolutely convince myself that what I'm looking at matches the characters mentioned in the key. I never rely on photos alone, unless I can clearly see the characters that separate one species from another. Unfortunately, in Calystegia, that's difficult. The photos you sent are good: in focus, well-lit, and show different parts of the plant, just not the ones we need. :) Being able to identify something to genus is all that would be asked of you in a college class.
One thing I know about the St. Helena morning glory is that it's associated with serpentine soils, so that would be a very good thing to notice.
What a great discussion! Commendations for spending so much time with this flower. I have to admit I often given up before I even start when it comes to Convolvulaceae. It's a tricky group! And if you think plant morphology has some weird terms, you should try keying out marine invertebrates! Here's a snippet from a randomly-chosen page in Light's Manual:
"Anterior swimming bell to 35 mm in length, hydroecium extends one-half the length of the bell, somatocyst long and slender, subumbrella with distinct fingerlike extension at its apex....... Diphyes dispar"
Why any oceanic creature would need an umbrella, let alone an umbrella underneath its umbrella, is beyond me.
The data quality assessment is a summary of an observation's accuracy. All
observations start as "casual" grade, and achieve
"research" grade when
the iNat community agrees with the observer's ID, where an "agreeing"
identification is one that matches exactly or is of a child taxon of the
observer's ID. For example, if Scott says it's a mammal and Ken-ichi
says it's Homo sapiens, then Ken-ichi agrees with Scott.
the observation has a date
the observation is georeferenced (i.e. has lat/lon coordinates)
the observation has a photo
Observations will revert to "casual" grade if the above conditions aren't met or
the community agrees the location doesn't looks accurate (e.g. monkeys in the middle of the ocean, hippos in office buildings, etc.)
the community agrees the organism isn't wild/naturalized (e.g. captive or cultivated by humans or intelligent space aliens)
iNaturalist.org shares licensed observation data with
several data partners so your data can be more accessible to
scientists and other researchers.
If you'd like us to share your observations with data partners, make
sure you've chosen to license your observations with a Creative
Commons license.
External Links
This observation has been incorporated into the following external websites:
some rights reserved
Comments & Identifications
This actually looks like Mt. St. Helena Morning Glory (which is on CNPS's Rare and Endangered Plant List). This is excellent habitat (serpentine soils) for this plant species.
I just looked up Curious George's Calystegia collina oxyphylla's (non-research-grade) observation:
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/81736#comment-18167
It looks like he observed it in the same general location at Pepperwood that you did.
I consulted with Matthew (our botanist guest speaker, iNat name "Metridium2002") and he said:
It could also be C. malacophylla, occidentalis, purpurata, or subacaulis and that it's tough to tell from the photos.
Could you add this information so he/I can help ID it?
Are the bracts large and like the sepals?
How hairy is the plant?
How dense and thick are the hairs?
How long are the pedicels compared to the petioles?
I would love to answer the questions for you, but I have no idea what "Pedicels", "Petioles", "Bracts" "Sepals", ect are. I never learned those words. But the leaves were pretty hairy, and if you want, I have a really nice enlarged picture of the flower that I could email to you (The pictures on here come up smaller than the actual picture I can see on my computer)
Yes, please email the photo tonight (jbyrne@srcs.k12.ca.us) and I'll also email it to Matthew who is working on iNat tonight (AKA "Metridium2002").
You should have written down many of those vocabulary words during the perfect flower dissection and coloring (right after you learned about Mendel's pea plant experiments). Here is a general diagram: http://saylorplants.com/SaylorPlants/Ref_Info/Flower_001k_color_.JPG
We did add "sepal" and "pedicel" to our diagram in 3rd period I believe.
Anyhow, I'll show you a more detailed flower diagram tomorrow if you don't have time to go online tonight.
Yeah we did learn those two words, but how am I supposed to compare them with words I don't know? And I'll just have to look at you more detailed photo tomorrow during class, because I have a bunch of other finals to study for, and more homework to do before I go to bed.
Oh, and I just sent the photos.
Thanks, I'm just looking at them now.
Courtney, your instincts are very good. Better than mine when I was a student. Also, botanical terms are very arcane. You probably won't get the hang of this until you take at least one university level course and work hard to memorize many strange words and concepts. But even I have to keep reference books literally within arm's reach because I can't remember all of it, so don't let it get to you. I've been studying botany for 20 years and I feel like I've only scratched the surface. Also, your descriptions are very helpful. You have a good eye for this. If you enjoy it, keep at it.
Calystegia is a tricky genus because most of the species in it look very similar. You can only tell them apart by looking very closely. So you know what I'm dealing with, here is the dichotomous key:
http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/get_IJM.pl?key=11473
Also, see
http://www.calflora.org/cgi-bin/specieslist.cgi?where-prettyreglist=any&where-namesoup=Calystegia&where-caltranslifeform2=any&where-native=any&rel-rarity=invalue&where-rarity=any&rel-calipc=gte&rel-upper_elev_ft=gt&where-upper_elev_ft=&rel-lower_elev_ft=lt&where-lower_elev_ft=&where-pretty_plantcomm=any&where-category=any&orderby=taxon
I'm less willing than other people on iNat to go out on a limb unless I can absolutely convince myself that what I'm looking at matches the characters mentioned in the key. I never rely on photos alone, unless I can clearly see the characters that separate one species from another. Unfortunately, in Calystegia, that's difficult. The photos you sent are good: in focus, well-lit, and show different parts of the plant, just not the ones we need. :) Being able to identify something to genus is all that would be asked of you in a college class.
One thing I know about the St. Helena morning glory is that it's associated with serpentine soils, so that would be a very good thing to notice.
What a great discussion! Commendations for spending so much time with this flower. I have to admit I often given up before I even start when it comes to Convolvulaceae. It's a tricky group! And if you think plant morphology has some weird terms, you should try keying out marine invertebrates! Here's a snippet from a randomly-chosen page in Light's Manual:
"Anterior swimming bell to 35 mm in length, hydroecium extends one-half the length of the bell, somatocyst long and slender, subumbrella with distinct fingerlike extension at its apex....... Diphyes dispar"
Why any oceanic creature would need an umbrella, let alone an umbrella underneath its umbrella, is beyond me.
Add a comment
Add an identification