Currently in flower

  

Red-flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum var. glutinosum) photographed on 11 February 2023.

P.S.  Other Ribes species are sometimes called gooseberries. There's a fun resemblance between their fruit and the "sea gooseberry" (a ctenophore, or comb jelly).  See for yourself in one of my earliest NHBH posts back in 2012 -- "A two gooseberry day".

Early summer

  

Early summer view with the yellow-flowering shrub called Lizard Tail or Seaside Woolly Sunflower (Eriophyllum staechadifolium), 30 June 2022

Opening up

 

Some flowers for you!  Red-flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum var. glutinosum), one of our earliest flowering shrubs. Photographed in the Bodega Dunes on 11 February 2020.

Western beauty

 

Western Azalea (Rhododendron occidentale) photographed at The Cedars on 11 May 2019.

To learn more about this beautiful flowering shrub, see "Western Azalea: Beauty and Fragrance" by Roger Raiche at the Pacific Horticulture Society's website.

Stellate

I haven't shown a mystery close-up in a while.  Can you guess what this is?  (The answer is revealed below.)

 

Michelle noticed these stellate (star-like) hairs.

Here's a zoomed out view which will help identify the type of organism this is:

 

The dense stellate hairs make this flowering shrub look fuzzy.  The first photo was a close-up of the surface of a flower petal.  Below you can also see the stellate hairs on the leaves and stems. (Note that these hairs can be irritating to human skin and eyes.)

 

And here's an open flower:

 

Meet California Flannelbush (Fremontodendron californicum)!  It's a native evergreen shrub that tends to grow in sandy washes near seasonal creeks or on well-drained slopes.  I'm not that familiar with this species, but it appears to be uncommon in Sonoma County.  Photographed in The Cedars on 11 May 2019.

 

Flower party

 

A couple of days ago, we stopped very briefly to look at some beautiful Pacific Rhododendron (Rhododendron macrophyllum) flowers at the Kruse Rhododendron State Natural Reserve.

When I was reviewing the photos, I was intrigued by the anthers (the male parts that produce pollen).  Up close, it looks like each anther has little "googly eyes."  It made me laugh because I imagined there was a little party going on, with everyone gathered at the center of the flower (not such a bad place for a party!).  Check it out:

 

On the nature of pappus

I need to correct a mistake in last night's post.  I called the Coyote Brush flowers male, but I've realized now that the flowers in last night's photo are female (and I've corrected that post).

I'm not a botanist, so I hope you will forgive my mistake...and perhaps you can learn with me.  Here's what happened.  I had remembered that in Coyote Brush, male and female flowers occur on separate plants.  But when I took the picture that I showed last night, I couldn't remember how to tell the different types of flowers apart.  So I looked around for clues and found this:

 

I said, "Okay, I can see that the shorter yellowish flowers are producing pappus."  Pappus is the white fluffy material that (often) carries seeds.  [When you blow seeds off a dandelion, you're blowing on the pappus (with a seed at the bottom) which then floats away.]  

Until now, I have associated pappus with seeds, which are produced by female flowers, so I thought these shorter yellowish flowers were female.  And I reasoned that therefore the longer whitish flowers (in last night's photo) were male.

Then today I noticed a lot of insect activity around some Coyote Brush plants — e.g., here's a nice fly (and an ant), feeding on white flowers.

 

When I looked closely, I realized that there was pappus associated with the white flowers (see below for an example):

 

So now I realized I had a problem.  A few days ago I had noticed pappus on yellow flowers, and today I observed pappus on white flowers.  So...which flowers are male and which are female?

I had to do some more research, and discovered that the white flowers are female and the yellow flowers are male.  They *both* produce pappus, but note that the pappus is longer in the females and shorter in the males.

I hadn't realized that some male flowers produce pappus, but now I know, and you do, too! 

Since pappus is associated with seeds and can play a role in seed dispersal, it raises the question of why male flowers also produce pappus?  I don't know the answer, but let me know if you've heard of an explanation (or can think of one!).

Here are two more pictures: a closeup of male Coyote Brush flowers, and a handsome striped fly on a male flower: