Toothworts

(Notice: this is a continually updated blog as I get more input, learn more, and change my mind yet again. If I ever get certain of the identification of these photos, I'll delete all the previous muddled thoughts.)

Cardamine species  (Toothworts) are many and confusing to me, so I'm going to do an entire blog with photos of the ones in our woodland (in the coast range of Northwest Oregon) that may or may not be Cardamine and try to sort them out. I will add names as I get them identified. All help appreciated! First photos taken March 23, 2014.

Update April 1st, 2014 (no foolin'!) ... Oh, happy days! Howard Bruner, bless his heart, photocopied and emailed 15 pages out of Hitchcock's Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest with Cardamine key and drawings. From those drawings, principally, I'm finding the names of the wildflowers pictured below. My original guess (when there is one) is still by the photo along with the corrected version from Hitchcock... at least, one version. (The name usually has about half a dozen synonyms. Every botanist, it appears, classifies these little darlings somewhat differently.)  Later update: Howard Bruner has corrected my guesses. The captions on the photos give his corrected names. However, modern naming systems do not always agree with Hitchcock (or, therefore, Howard Bruner). When my head clears, I'll try to name them according to more recent sources. That may be in another year or two... My head is pretty confused right now. Here is the website that holds the most promise:
http://science.halleyhosting.com/nature/plants/4petal/must/cardamine/cardamine.html

Also helpful: Oregon Flora Project http://www.oregonflora.org/


Another photo site: http://www.pnwflowers.com/search?t=Cardamine&Search=Search

And the one mentioned by Don Boucher: http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/faculty/carr/ofp/dicot_genus_index.htm

 The flowers below are all through my flowerbeds as well as down by the creek, so I don't really consider them proper wildflowers, since the flowers are tiny and inconspicuous. But I think it's a Cardamine.

My guess is Cardamine oligosperma, Little Western Bittercress

This is the same as the one above, showing the stem leaves and the basal leaves and the linear seedpods. Pretty sure it's Cardamine oligosperma. Update: Cardamine oligosperma, var. Kamtschatka. One common name seems to be milkmaids so that's what I'll call it although I have no idea how it got that name (which is applied to other plants as well). (Howard Bruner has weighed in with C. oligosperma. Wrong area for Kamtschatka.)

From the first website mentioned above: Little Western Bittercress, Siberian Bittercress, Umbellate Bittercress: Cardamine oligosperma var. oligosperma (Synonyms: Cardamine oligosperma var. kamtschatica, Cardamine umbellata)

Cardamine oligosperma

Now things get even more muddled. This looks very much like the earliest blooming Cardamines in our woods, C. nuttallii (according to most sources), but with segmented leaves, not simple. And they began blooming a little after the C. nuttallii. According to Haskin's Wild Flowers of the Pacific Coast, this is, I think, Dentaria tenella Pursh, commonly called Spring Beauty. But unlike the "other" spring beauty (which we, apparently, do not have in our woods), it has 4 petals, not 5. Haskins says the root leaves are orbicular. I did see orbicular leaves that, for some reason, I did not associate with these flowers at the time I took photos. Maybe because, as my Gilkey "Handbook of Northwestern Plants" says, the basal leaf is "generally somewhat distant from stem".

But wait! It gets worse! A web source says Dentaria tenella is a synonym for C. nuttallii!! Or more exactly, "Dentaria tenella var. palmata Detling is a synonym of Cardamine nuttallii Greene." So... apparently we are now dealing with subspecies or varieties. I may go back to calling them all Spring Beauties.

(Update: Hitchcock says the larger flowered Cardamine, with usually brighter flowers, are often called Dentaria.)

The one below that is so plentiful in our woods is C. pulcherrima... otherwise known as C. nuttallii. I know it's somewhat different than the first Spring cardamine types to bloom but perhaps they are just different varieties. To illustrate the confusion in naming:
Spring Beauty, Nuttall's Toothwort, Oaks Toothwort, Slender Toothwort: Cardamine nuttallii var. nuttallii (Synonyms: Cardamine nuttallii var. covilleana, Cardamine nuttallii var. dissecta, Cardamine pulcherrima, Cardamine pulcherrimia var. pulcherrima, Cardamine pulcherrima var. tenella, Dentaria tenella, Dentaria tenella var. pulcherrima, Dentaria tenella var. quercetorum, Dentaria tenella var. tenella) -

Cardamine pucherrima

Cardamine pulcherrima

Cardamine pulcherrima

The five photos below I think are all of the same species and I think it is Cardamine angulata, Angled Bitter-cress. Wild Flowers of the Pacific Coast by Haskin says "The slender plants of the angled bitter-cress will be found growing in moist woods and on stream banks near the coast or in the mountains. The white, four-petaled flowers proclaim it at once to be a member of the mustard family, and the rather large, sharply angled leaflets of its pinnate leaves will help to distinguish this species from others of this rather diffficult genus. The blossoms appear from April to June."

I will second the comment that this is a rather difficult genus!

According to the drawings in Hitchcock, the following are, indeed, C. angulata. But Howard Bruner says only the first three are. The last two are C. integrifolia. "Remember that C. angulata has a very strict trifoliate leaf pattern and is very hairy while C. integrifolia is sparsely hairy and has a lot of single basal leaves."

Seaside Bittercress, Angled Bittercress, Angle-leaved Bittercress

Cardamine angulata

Synonyms: Cardamine angulata var. alba, Cardamine angulata var. hirsuta, Cardamine angulata var. pentaphylla, Dentaria grandiflora

Cardamine angulata

Cardamine angulata

Cardamine angulata

Milk Maids, Toothwort: Cardamine californica (Synonyms: Cardamine californica var. californica, Cardamine californica var. integrifolia, Cardamine californica var. sinuata, Cardamine integrifolia, Cardamine integrifolia var. integrifolia, Cardamine integrifolia var. sinuata, Dentaria californica, Dentaria californica var. californica, Dentaria californica var. sinuata)

Cardamine integrifolia

Cardamine integrifolia

This is our earliest blooming wildflower, Cardamine nuttallii, I'm pretty sure. It is still blooming. However, Hitchcock does not even list a C. nuttallii. He does, however, list a C. pulcherrima that looks like (and keys out to) this flower. A search of the web reveals that C. pulcherrima is a synonym for C. nuttallii! I do wish these botanists would stick to one name or the other. However, Howard Bruner says this is another C. integrifolia. I am reserving judgment on this one because I have only seen the pulcherrima (nuttalii) this deep a pink.

The flowers on the plants below had not yet opened (on March 23). I was eager to see what they would look like! Lots of orbicular long-petioled basal leaves here, along with the three-lobed, sharply angled upper leaves. But Howard Bruner says these are C. integrifolia. (Note synonyms above. Current naming system would make these, near as I can figure, C. californica var. integrifolia. Maybe.)

Here are photos from March 31, grouped into what I thought must be different species, but now I'm wondering. They are tentatively identified with the help of Hitchcock.

                                                       Group A... C. integrifolia (nope, according to H. Bruner these are C. angulata)

C. angulata

C. angulata

                                                               Group B... will have to wait for the flowers to open (But H. Bruner says C. angulata and he knows a whole lot more than I do...)

Cardamine angulata

Cardamine angulata

                                                              Group C... C. angulata (nope according to Howard Bruner... rather they are C. integrifolia)

Cardamine integrifolia

Cardamine integrifolia

Cardamine integrifolia

                                                         Group D... C. integrifolia? (yes, according to H. Bruner)

Cardamine integrifolia

Cardamine integrifolia

           Group E... C. tenella var. dissecta (or C. pulcherrima var. tenella or C. pulcherrima var. pulcherrima or Dentaria something and who knows what else...)

Cardamine pulcherrima

I do hereby declare the very pink ones with simple thin leaves to be Early Spring Queens and the lighter pink or white ones that look like them but with slightly wider leaves to be Later Spring Queens.I'll stick with Angled Bitter Cress for C. angulata. C. integrifolia and its many variations, also known as C. californica var. integrifolia, shall be California toothwort. Why stick to the Latin names when no one can agree on them?

Many thanks to Howard Bruner for his invaluable help and identifications and to the authors of Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest. And especially to Paul Slichter's excellent website. Input on these flowers welcomed.

Spring Woodland Wildflowers

Since I tend to lose photos on my computer if I don't post them right away, I'll start this blog with the first flowers to bloom this spring in our woods, early March: what I call Spring Beauties, Claytonia lanceolata, but which are not. Naturalist Don Boucher tells me that Claytonia have five petals, while my flowers have four and are Cardamine nuttallii. What the common name is may remain a mystery. One source gives several: beautiful bitter-cress, Nuttall's toothwort, palmate toothwort, slender toothwort. Another source calls it Western Spring Beauty... the same as Claytonia lanceolata. Good grief.

Bitter-cress? Toothwort?? For the first breath of spring in our woods? I think not.  I'll call them Spring Queens as that is what I used to call them, the last time I realized they were not the "real" Spring Beauties (with five petals).

I'll add more flowers later, as they bloom and I get photographs. And hopefully the right names.

Another walk in the woods today, March 12, found many more flowers popping up, but not yet blooming, like these two varieties of Trillium...

Sessile Trillium or Mottled Trillium, Trillium chloropetalum

Western Trillium, Trillium ovatum

The shrub we call Indian Plum is blooming. Oemleria cerasiformis , always the first shrub or tree to bloom, is also known as Oso Berry.

On this warm March day, it was attracting all manner of flying insects.

Today, March 16, many more flowers are blooming in our woods. But I don't know what all of them are. More four-petalled little pink flowers are blooming (some more white than pink, at least in my photos), but with different leaves than the Cardamine nuttallii. The closest I can find is Cardamine angulata, but that is said to be rare, or Cardamine californica... which none of my books even lists. Thanks to Don Boucher for this wonderful photo site of Oregon flora that helps narrow things down: http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/faculty/carr/ofp/ofp_index.htm  (It is entirely of Oregon, not Hawaii, in spite of the name.) But I still don't know what this 4-petalled flowers is.

Somehow my last update never made it to the web. My old Morton E. Peck "A Manual of the Higher Plants of Oregon" says that Cardamine angulata is found in the woods of northwestern Oregon to Washington, so maybe it is only rare outside that region. I think that's what this is. Common name, according to Peck, Angle-leaved Bitter Cress.

A little five petaled flower is just beginning to bloom but it has no stem leaves. Some young plants, apparently, do not have stem leaves at first so maybe this one will develop them eventually. I'll keep checking. If it isn't Western Spring Beauty, Claytonia lanceolata (named for those lance-shaped stem leaves that my plant doesn't have), then I don't know what it is. Another great site that Don gave me, http://www.oregonflora.org/atlas.php, helps tell where in Oregon a plant has been seen, but I could not find any with the distinctive orbicular seven-lobed basal leaf that this flower has. Or I think it has. That leaf *looked* like it was coming up from the same place as the flowers...

Update March 23... Many thanks to John Woodhouse who found what looks like this flower in Peterson's Pacific States Wildflowers (which I have but did not do as good detective work as John did!). Suksdorff's Romanzoffia (whew! And that's the "common" name!). Romanzoffia suksdorfii is the Latin name. Looks just like my photo. Click on the photo for an enlarged version that shows the yellow band in the throat of the flower, and the tiny projections at the tip of each leaf lobe. My Peck book agrees and adds more location info: "Damp cliffs in the Coast and Cascade Mtns to Alaska and Calif." That would be here.

The little yellow violets are easier to identify: Viola glabella, Wood Violet. Thankfully, all the guidebooks agree.

Most of the trilliums are still not blooming but I found one that was: Western Trillium, Trillium ovatum. The Western Trillium flower has a stem holding the flower above the leaves.

Today, March 19, I prowled the woods again. Lots more leaves up and Trillium ovatum blooming...

The Spring Queens, as I now call them, are thicker than ever... Cardamine nuttallii, presumably, although my old Morton E. Peck "A Manual of the Higher Plants of Oregon" doesn't even list that species.

I have six guidebooks laid out on my desk, plus all the resources of the web, but none of them agree or have the same names, far as I can tell. I need a wildflower expert. This little apparent Cardamine with the three to five lobed leaves, pale pink flowers in bud turning into white flowers, is still a mystery, although my Peck book lists C. angulata as being in the woods of northwestern Oregon to Washington, so maybe it is only rare outside that region. Whatever they are, they are common in my northwestern Oregon woodland.

Another update from 3/23/14: Howard Bruner tells me that this is not C. angulata (but agrees that the one earlier that I called that is that). Rather this is C. integrifolia, which none of my books list. However according to websites, a synonym for C. integrifolia is Dentaria californica or C. californica var. integrifolia. Oh my. I thought it was the same as the plants pictured earlier but apparently not. Will I ever get these little spring woodland flowers sorted out?

Although the leaves of Wild Bleeding-Heart, Dicentra formosa, have been carpeting the ground all month, today was the first day I spotted flower buds. Perhaps on my next walk in the woods, the many Bleeding Hearts will be flowering. There's always something to look forward to in the coastal mountains of Oregon.

March 23: more Dicentra formosa in bloom...

Lots of Oxalis oregana, Oregon oxalis or Redwood Sorrel, are up but not yet blooming, except for this one, just opening, showing the pink veined white flower.

March 30 finds many more plants up and finally a few sessile trillium (Trillium chloropetalum) blooming. I read that the leaves are most mottled in the shade, fading out in sunlight, and that seems to be the case. The first blooming ones, presumably because they get more sunlight, have little mottling in their leaves. The heavily mottled leaves are still refusing to open their flowers.

This Western Trillium has turned pink as it aged. Pretty!

Trillium ovatum

The path through our woods closest to Agency Creek is covered in Western Bluebells (Mertensia platyphylla)... not yet open but this one is close. I thought they were Mertensia bella, Oregon bluebells, but Howard Bruner tells me they are platyphylla, Western Bluebells. Whatever, we have lots of them and I love their blueness.

On Easter Sunday, April 20, finally one bell was open.

As for those confusing Cardamines, they are all over the place. I have started a post just for them: "Toothworts". http://fffwildflowers.blogspot.com/2014/03/toothworts.html

A good site for wildflowers west of the Cascade Mountains is: http://science.halleyhosting.com/index.html
Then navigate to Wildflowers West of the Cascade Mountains and follow the simple identification key.

April 7 I headed to the woods again, hoping to find more flowers open. Mostly all the same are blooming. I did find this candy-striped Oxalis oregana.

And, at last, a truly mottled, Mottled (or Sessile) Trillium is flowering.

And the sessile trillium I've been watching for a month with a tightly closed bud, finally opened.

The Oregon Grape were in full bloom, too.

Mahonia aquifolium

April 8: two new flowers in bloom, but I sure had trouble finding their names. It took all my keys plus my new-to-me Hitchcock 5 volume set to find that this plentiful plant is simply a woodland buttercup. The trouble was that most of the guides insist it has 5 petals. Only my old and dear Plants of the Pacific Northwest, by Leonid Enari, solved the mystery: "Flowers pale yellow, small, inconspicuous, with 5 sepals, 5, 4, 3, or 2 petals..." I thought at first it was missing petals, but, if so, every single flower was missing the same number of petals because all of them had three.

Here is Ranunculus Bongardii Greene, synonym (thanks to Hitchcock) Ranunculus uncinatus...

Another plant was blooming:  Siberian Miner's Lettuce, or, as some keys call it, Siberian Candyflower. Montia sibirica

It does look good enough to eat and, indeed, all parts of the plant are edible and rather tasty. Oxalis, with a similar looking flower but very different leaves is also edible but rather sour. We call it sourgrass.