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Showing posts with label blennosperma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blennosperma. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

Yellow carpet


Here's another photo from our hike at Point Reyes on 29 March 2019.  I think the dominant yellow flower here is Point Reyes Blennosperma (Blennosperma nanum var. robustum).  When researching this species, I learned a fun fact: Blennosperma disk flowers exude a sticky fluid that contains the pollen.  

I wish I had known that before we encountered Blennosperma on our hike because I would have spent more time trying to get a better close-up photograph.  But here's one image where I zoomed inI think you can see some of the large white stamens (they look like white "dots" scattered among the disk flowers in the center) that will produce the pollen:


P.S.  "Blennosperma" might seem like an odd name, but it means "slimy seed" and apparently refers to a characteristic of this species the seeds become slimy when wet (according to the Jepson eFlora).