Reference text, line drawings inadequate
Wrinkles diagnostic to wildflower identity of two similar looking species of shootingstar: Bonneville (Dodecatheon conjugens) and Few-flowered (Dodecatheon pulchellum). Obviously, plants don’t have wrinkles around eyes. They have wrinkles on the connective tissue of the anther. Hitchcock and Cronquist use more precise botanical terms to generically describe location and look:
…anthers slender, connective prominent, colored, smooth to tranversely rugose…
Hitchcock, C. Leo & Cronquist, Arthur (1991). Flora of the Pacific Northwest An Illustrated Manual. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.
Let me translate. Anthers are slender; they distribute pollen. Connective is the word for tissue that connects anther pollen sacs. In this case, connective is obvious to the eye by being colored and either smooth or wrinkled (rugose).
Yes, the language is supplemented with line drawings by Jeanne R. Janish, but the drawings are small. The connective feature really needs an exploded view, preferably 4x or 5x life size. If I read the manual correctly the connective is only 4 mm or so in length. Bottom line, I was doubting my identifications because the graphics and text did not provide me a clear idea of what was what 🙂 I let the bent backwards flower petals get me initially confused.
Photographs to augment manual use
So, I took action. I used my macro lenses to capture photos of the connective for both species. By the way, Bonneville has horizontal wrinkles on the connective and Few-flowered has smooth or vertical wrinkles. I processed the digital files in Photoshop in both color and monochrome. I did this to highlight the wrinkles or lack thereof. The monochrome look may accent this feature better. So, there are four photos below of the two species, two apiece. The black and white version has a red circle indicating the connective tissue. Can you identify the plants to species. The alt text for each photo provides the correct ID.
