Around the Arboretum May 9th, 2019; May Gray or Soft Day?

Here is a link to a map showing the locations of all the plants mentioned in today's blog post. 

The weather over the last several days has been 'soft', another term for it I just heard recently, May grey. I love these kind of days because colors are more vivid and subtle at the same time. 

Located on the western perimeter road where it turns a sharp right just before the Tropical Forest, this stand of Chilean Cistanthe grandiflora is really putting on a show. This particular plant loves May grey and June gloom, and in fact does extremely well on the coast where those conditions are almost year round.  

Cinstanthe grandiflora

 If you take the little path that goes to roots and shoots to the Tongva kiy you will find Verbena bonariensis blooming right next to it. Verbena bonariensis' long, linear looks compliment the straw structure of the kiy quite nicely.

Verbena bonariensis

 Keep an eye out for birds, right now seems to be an exceptional time to see them. Below is an American robin that was methodically looking for worms in the lawn just east of the turtle pond.

American robin. 

 I then went off trail somewhat and checked out the western edge of the now dry Tule pond. There was a tree there that looked like a volunteer, and appeared to be a rather old paper mulberry, Broussonetia papyrifera. Paper mulberries may have originated in Taiwan and have been a part of both Polynesian culture where they are used to make cloth and Chinese culture where it has been used to make paper. Here the plant is a terribly invasive weed and we regularly have to remove large swaths of it from less maintained parts of the Arboretum on a regular basis. What's really cool about this tree are its female flowers. The flowers are multi carpellate (they have many female ovaries). The carpels are arranged in a sphere and each one of the carpels has a long, hairlike pistil, making the whole female flower look like an insanely large dust bunny (or other strange things depending on your imagination).

Pistillate flowers of the Paper mulberry. 

 Of course everything in the garden looks good when it's grey and cool, below is the Kallam Garden.

Kallam Garden

 Just above the little side waterfall that makes up one of the two final cascades of the Meyberg falls in the southern end of the Arboretum is one of the last blooming Pink trumpet trees. Our trumpet trees bloomed late this year, and because of that bloomed furiously and for a much shorter duration than normal. This one, located adjacent the falls, is still in bloom -probably due to the cooling effect of the falls and the limited sunlight due to its location on the north side of Tallac Knoll.

Handroanthus (Tabebuia) impetiginosa blooming adjacent Meyberg falls. 

 Below is the a Matilija poppy (located just outside the herb garden on its northwest border) just opening up from its bud. The calyx of the flower (the green petal like structure just below the petals themselves) will remain on the bud until the bud's swelling displaces it. The calyx probably acts to protect the petals of the poppy while it is developing as the high amount of sugar the petals contain is highly attractive to plant eating pests.

Romneya coulteri, the Matilija poppy, just breaking out of its bud. 

 Inside the herb garden you can find Romney coulteri's cousin, Argemone mexicana, the Mexican prickly poppy. Here you can see remnants of the protective calyx as the pressure of the swelling poppy petals shatter it. Besides its protective calyx, Argemone mexicana is armed to the teeth with stout spines in order to protect itself from being eaten.

Argemone mexicana blooms. 

 Argemone mexicana's leaves are also very hydrophobic, resulting in beautiful water beads on the leaves after a rain.

Argemone mexicana leaves. 

 At the eastern edge of the herb garden a fantastic show is going on with a frenzied bloom of Golden columbine (Aquilegia chrysantha ) occuring in the Shakespeare garden beds.This is one of the densest blooms of the flower I've seen in a long time. 

Aquilegia chrysantha, the Golden columbine

Aquilegia chrysantha (background), Wooly hedge nettle, Stachys byzantina, forground.  

 The rose garden is amazing, and that's a whole nother blog post. Check it out before it gets too hot.

Rose Garden

 Volunteer honeysuckle vines have grown up the trunks of two palms located on the north shore of the Baldwin lagoon. They smell awesome and look fantastic.

Honeysuckle vines (Lonicera sp. ) growing on the north shore to the Baldwin Lagoon. 

 Of course when conditions are right, and the water is relatively calm and glassy, great photography can be had.

Canary island palm (Phoenix canariensis)leaning out over Baldwin lagoon. 

 Finally, near the south gate entrance located just south of the McFee (gateway) fountain, was this freak of nature. It is an Echium wildpretii (common name 'Tower of Jewels'), that has a monstrose deformity known as fasciation. Fasciation occurs in plants (usually annuals or biennials) due to a malfunction of the cell division in the growing tip of the plant. It can be genetic, or, as is probably the case here, due to a soil born bacteria. In these pictures the fasciated Tower of Jewels is on top, and a non-fasciated one is pictured below.

Fasciated Echium wildpretii

Normal Echium wildpretii.