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Mirabile Visu*
But you could tell that from the drawing, right? Congratulate Annie (Barron) Walker for having the sharp eye and good luck to be heading over the right hill at the right time to see something unusual about this little buckwheat. According to Annie, there was a question as to the identity of the plant and she took a small sample to a co-worker. That person couldn’t nail it so it went up the chain until it was sent to Dr. James L. Reveal, Professor Emeritus University of Maryland who knows about such things. Dr. Reveal clinched it: Annie had a new form of Eriogonum on her hands. Eriogonom spectabile grows only in three small plots in the Lassen National Forest where there are fewer than 300 individuals. Still, there have been flowers on successive years’ visits, according to Madroño, the journal of the California Botanical Society. From Madroño: “The specific name refers to the spectacular appearance of the plant, which is quite attractive. We suggest the common name ‘Barron’s buckwheat’ to acknowledge the first collector.” The lesson here is that one never knows what one will find on a flower walk, and being open to really looking at what you might think you already know is not a bad plan. Who knows what surprises lurk in the small vegetation at the side of the trail or hidden back in the recesses of the rocky cliff just overthere, a little off the beaten path? Good eye, Annie. Annie is also the chapter's authority on invasive weeds. *mirabile visu = marvelous to see |
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Planta perennis, suffrutex, usque 2.5 cm alta;
caules patentes dense ramosi fragiles; petioli breves 0.6–0.9 cm longi; lamina foliaris anguste elliptica, 0.5 -1.7 cm longa, 0.4 - 0.7 cm lata, in superficiebus ambabus sericea cinereo-tomentosa, marginibus integris plani Mirabile Visus vel re bi-tomentosi deinde glabrati; inflorescentia umbellata; bracteae semifoliaceae, angusti-oblongae vel-elipticae, albi-tomentosae; involucra solitaria, extus sericeo-tomentosa atque dense glandularia intus glabra...