Hello friends,
Doing a walk on Galbreath Wildlands Preserve for Sonoma State University Center for Environmental Inquiry on Saturday, Sept 26th. Come join me! Parking is limited so a free reservation is required.
Registration and more details at:
https://cei.sonoma.edu/events/micro-safari
Hope to see some of you there :)
Cat
Plagiobothrys glaber (Gray), presumed extinct, CNPS Rank 1A
Comparison of nutlets from An Illustrated Flora of the Pacific States by Leroy Abrams, Stanford University Press, 1951.
Herbarium collection from Mt. Eden, Alameda
Abaxial view of nutlet
Axial view of nutlet
Jepson:
Habit: Annual, sparse-short-strigose.
Stem: ascending to erect, 1--2 dm, thick, hollow.
Leaf: cauline, lower 2--11 mm. Inflorescence: dense, bracts below; pedicels 0.5--2 mm, thick, hollow.
Flower: calyx 3 mm, 8--10 mm in fruit, narrow, basal 2--3 mm fused into fleshy cylinder, lobes appressed, +- spreading at tip, oblong to spoon-shaped, midveins thick; corolla limb +- 3 mm diam.
Fruit: nutlet 1.8--2 mm, lanceolate to lance-ovate, shiny, dark brown, attached firmly; abaxial ridge narrow, obscure below middle, cross-ribs above middle, few, rounded, wrinkled, +- flat below, +- tubercled; margins with entire border; adaxial ridge V-shaped, fine- to obscure-granular to smooth; scar basal, generally on peg.
Ecology: Wet, saline, +- alkaline soils in valleys, coastal marshes; Elevation: < 100 m.
Flowering Time: Apr--May
Unabridged Note: As noted by C.V. Piper in 1920, Plagiobothrys glaber and succulent forms of Plagiobothrys stipitatus var. micranthus can be distinguished by nutlets (the latter coarse- and conspicuous-granular adaxially, with margin border not entire).
Illustrated Flora of the Pacific States:
Allocarya glabra (A. Gray) J. F. Macbride. Glabrous Allocarya.
Stems erect, with stout erect branches from near the base, 1-2 dm. high, succulent, very sparsely strigillose. Lower leaves linear, 5-8 cm. long, upper ones linear-oblanceolate and shorter, glabrous above, sparsely pustulate and strigose below ; racemes rather densely flowered, erect and somewhat fistulous, leaf-bracted at base, unilateral with the flowers somewhat 2-ranked; corolla about equaling the calyx-lobes, the limb about 1.5 mm. broad; fruiting calyx sessile accrescent, 8-10 mm. long, the lobes united below with a tube about 2 mm. long, becoming firm by the indurated midrib; nutlets lanceolate, 2 mm. long, the body flattened and the apex attenuate and beak-like ; dorsal side with a cauline keel and two rather definite lateral ones, also with a few transverse ridges mostly above the middle, tuberculate; ventral side keeled the whole length, weakly tuberculate; scar basal, circular, substipitate. Salt marshes and alkaline flats, Upper Sonoran Zone; margin of San Francisco Bay in Alameda and Santa Clara Counties, and near Hollister, San Benito County. Type locality: "Apache Pass. S. Arizona, Lemmon, 1881." "Some misplacement of labels is to be suspected, for the form is common in the Alameda marsh lands, particularly about Mount Eden." K. Brandegee
Hi all,
I’ll be in Eugene this week. Perfect for hosting a iNat Happy Hour this Friday 5/17 from 5:30-7:30 at
Oakshire Brewing Public House
207 Madison Street Eugene, Oregon 97402
Tagging the most recently active users for the Eugene area with at least 100 observations. Please feel free to tag people you think would be interested in the comments.
Looking forward to meeting you all!
Cat
This journal post is to keep track of articles, podcasts, etc. I've participated in.
Articles and podcasts:
• Linksploration - Bay Area iNaturalist - Your nature identification buddy, and so much
• Jumpstart Nature Podcast #5
• INaturalist YouTube Channel iNaturalist 2023 Deep Dive Webinar
• "The New Naturalists" by Mary Ellen Hannibal, Fall 2019 Bay Nature
• "If the Green Stuff in the California Trees Is Not Spanish Moss, What Is It?" by Cat Chang, Ask the Naturalist, Winter 2018 Bay Nature
Publications and websites:
• Pyrrocoma benitoana Nesom, G.L. 2025. Taxonomy of the Pyrrocoma racemosa group (Asteraceae: Astereae). Phytoneuron 2025-08: 1–64.
• Orphanostigma haemorrhoidalis Cock, M.J.W., Day, M.D., Solis, M.A., and Winston, R.L. (2025) Publicly-shared DNA barcodes and citizen science images provide new evidence on the establishment and spread of a lantana biological control agent, Orphanostigma haemorrhoidalis (Lepidoptera, Crambidae). CABI Agriculture and Bioscience 6(1), 0010, 11 pp.
• Sesia tibiale Cover photo for Lepidoptera Novae, ed. Dr. John B. Heppner, 2024 with permission.
• Vespula sulphurea used in The Social Wasps of North America, Chris Alice Kratzer with permission. Orders at https://www.owlflyllc.com/product-page/the-social-wasps-of-north-america.
• Medetera diadema used in Naturalist Training series for Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful by Barbara Banfield and Eddie Dunbar by permission.
• Parnassius behrii used with permission in Yosemite Wildlife by Beth Pratt and Robb Hirsch to be published by Yosemite Conservancy in fall 2025.
• Chlosyne whitneyi used with permission in Pollinators of the American West field guide by Denver Botanic Gardens.
• Allokermes rattani on Gallformers.org at https://www.gallformers.org/gall/1217
• Aglaothorax ovatus in Field Guide to California Insects: Second Edition, Vol. 111, California Natural History Guides by Kip Will, Joyce Gross, Daniel Rubinoff, & Jerry A. Powell. Used with permission.
• Argynnis callippe ssp. callippe used in the February 2025 newsletter for Sonoma Land Trust.
It’s been a minute since I looked back through a year on iNat and thought about the journey through the seasons and all the public lands accessed.
Highlights of the year:
-Joining the iNaturalist Board. I’m excited to help create sustainability for iNat as the organization moves into independence with an amazing group of people. Please join our community of monthly supporters; building diverse means of support is critical.
-Passing my 40,000th observation this spring. I decided to honor it with an excursion to the Griswold Hills in search of Desert Candle, Caulanthus inflatus with a crew of people I am honored to call friends. These are all friends I’ve become close to through the time we spend out in the field. @robberfly, @leslie_flint, @burtosa
-Seeing endemic Lepidoptera including the only two endemic butterflies in Hawai’i. This Omiodes moth is stunning; I found it by running a moth light at the hotel we stayed at in Kealakakua. The Kamehameha Butterfly, Vanessa tameamea is incredibly florescent in flight as it rockets through the canopy of the forest. I was lucky to be able to catch it for the few moments it was stopped on its host. The Hawaiian Blue, Udara blackburni isn’t blue but a beautiful shade of green outlined in yellows and rusts.
https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications?user_id=catchang&for=others
Grouped by taxon
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?ident_user_id=catchang¬_user_id=catchang&place_id=any&verifiable=any&view=species
Also helpful for keeping track of notifications
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?ident_user_id=catchang&order_by=updated_at&place_id=any&subview=table
Link for locational accuracy- replace your user name
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&subview=table&user_id=YourUserNameHere&verifiable=any&acc=false
Comments tagged in:
https://www.inaturalist.org/comments?q=catchang
I don’t need to say this- but 2020 was a year for the history books. I did my best to follow Shelter-in-Place guidelines for my county. At first I tried staying close to home- but being in Oakland open spaces with hundreds of other inner Bay Area people on a trail felt less safe than driving to the next county over. I posited my actions were reducing pressure on our local parks where much of Oakland’s populace has little privilege to get further out. Perhaps my internal justification is self serving— but access to natural open spaces can be very difficult for many city dwellers.
This year’s highlights were modest:
-Local Butterfly Counts:
My favorite was the Berkeley count. Meeting up with @robberfly, @tiwane, Danielle, @kueda reminded me why it’s a privilege to be out in a beautiful day counting urban butterflies. I forget how many species we had, but we saw a number of Euchloe ausonides, Large Marbles (and a Lycaena gorgon, Gorgon Copper!).
I helped with the SF, Mt. Diablo, Benicia and Pt. Reyes counts this year as well.
-Quercus palmeri:
Been wanting to see this species and tracked one almost in my backyard. Well- it was in the inner Bay Area and in my county! Still want to see the acorn cap for this. It makes a little hat that flares out amazingly. I am amazed by the potential bio-diversity in our urban areas.
-Staying safe and surviving:
I have missed all the people who I usually hike with. But here's to getting through this together.
(Click on photo if you want to be able to read the text.)
The iNat team graciously created a Year in Review tool. It got me thinking about the 5 years that I’ve been using iNat to understand what’s around me. I started in 2016 as a way to learn my fungi and along the way, that interest shifted to lichens and then to moths. Here is my comparison of use. You can see how my interest in moths has grown (and how 2020 really was an outlier since travel was suppressed.) @robberfly was a huge part of helping me learn this area of biology. Thanks, buddy- I’m sure in 2021 or 2022 we will be able to get out and about more easily.
Larval Case Architecture and Implications of Host-Plant Associations for North American Coleophora (Lepidoptera; Coleophoridae) by Sibyl Bucheli, Jean-Franc ̧ois Landry, and John Wenzel
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b3bd/1e169460323dfe13074f803190c6fab89833.pdf
