Mendocino Sonoma Coast

Mary Sue Ittner msittner@mcn.org
Sat, 02 Apr 2005 10:14:30 PST
Dear All,

Like Angelo I have made a wiki page to add all the geophytes that grow in 
the area where I live that I visit in the wild. I'm accumulating quite a 
few and have just added a few more that I photographed when Uli was here 
and a couple others I just hadn't gotten around to adding.
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…

Seen with Uli this week:
Erythronium californicum
Fritillaria affinis
Smilacina stellata

Those three are all very hard to photograph and I think I'll always be 
trying to improve. They are usually found in the shade and two of them have 
white flowers which makes getting leaves and flowers in focus and not part 
of the picture washed out or too dark very hard. Fritillaria affinis on the 
stretch where we were walking you usually don't see unless the sun is 
highlighting it and then part is almost always in the sun and part in the 
shade. Plus in this spot it is surrounded by poison oak.

Other pictures added Bob or I had taken before are Smilacina racemosa, 
Asarum caudatum, and Zantedeschia aethiopica. You may be wondering why I 
have included the last one on a page devoted to geophytes found in coastal 
Northern California. It is naturalized here just like Amaryllis belladonna. 
Once you have it, you have more, especially if it arrives in seasonal wet 
places. We didn't have any Zantedeschias on our wiki yet and Zantedeschia 
aethiopica was some people's favorite white flowered bulb.

When I made the Smilacina page I was interested to read how many places 
they are native with totally different rainfall patterns. I have a couple 
of patches in my garden of Smilacina stellata that expand each year and I 
am fond of the leaves. It stays green until some time in the fall and then 
disappears until February or March. So far I haven't gotten a Smilacina 
racemosa to germinate as I'd love to add it to my garden, but haven't 
always found berries the deer left. Bob took pictures of one in fruit last 
summer and I see I missed my chance to gather seed. We saw a pretty plant 
in bloom in a private garden in Scotland last May and I have added Bob's 
picture of it to the new wiki Smilacina page. It too is a challenge to 
photograph.
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…

Mary Sue

  


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