American germander flowers
American germander = Teucrium canadense.
June 10th: a shaded area along a tributary of Bull Creek.
(Back to explanatory mode next time.)
© 2014 Steven Schwartzman
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Love the delicate flowers.
Gallivanta
August 13, 2014 at 6:17 AM
Yes, these flowers are delicate and also small.
Steve Schwartzman
August 13, 2014 at 6:57 AM
The flower seems very similar to the ones I see on my teucrium fruticans.
Gallivanta
August 13, 2014 at 7:04 AM
I wasn’t familiar with that Mediterranean species of Teucrium, but I looked it up and found that it grows as a shrub, in contrast to the North American species, which grows as upright spikes. You can get a sense of the growth habit of Teucrium canadense in a picture from last summer:
https://portraitsofwildflowers.wordpress.com/2013/07/11/not-gerrymander-but-germander/
Steve Schwartzman
August 13, 2014 at 7:14 AM
Ah, yes, I see that the growth style is quite different.
Gallivanta
August 13, 2014 at 8:19 AM
Very lovely portrait. It is nice to occasionally find a pretty bloom against a shaded background and allow the flower to really stand out outstandingly as you have here.
Steve Gingold
August 13, 2014 at 6:25 AM
You’ve recognized one of my standard techniques, which is to find an angle that lines a subject up against a darker background. Here it was a shadowed area in the woods beyond the germander.
Steve Schwartzman
August 13, 2014 at 7:01 AM
This flower befuddled me at first. It just didn’t “look right.” I finally figured out it’s the seeming separation of the stamens and the petal(s?). I say “petal(s?)” because our beloved Lady Bird Johnson site tells me “the most distinctive feature of Teucrium species is the seemingly 1-lipped corolla.” The use of “seemingly” suggests there’s more to the corolla than I can see.
It only was this morning that I realized my car’s connection to botany. I drive a Toyota Corolla, which carries a name derived from a car made primarily for the Japanese market: the Crown. I didn’t get the Crown/Corolla connection, until I consulted Wiki. It tells me a “corolla” is “an ancient headdress made of a garland or wreath and worn as a small circlet or crown.” That makes “Princess” an even more appropriate name for my car.
shoreacres
August 13, 2014 at 7:54 AM
The authoritative Shinners and Mahler’s botany book says the corollas of Teucrium flowers are bilabiate but appear more or less one-lipped. It goes on to say that the upper lip is much shorter than the lower one and is divided into two lobes, each smaller than or equal to the lateral lobes of the much larger lower lip. Now that I know all that, I can see it in the picture.
As for the word corolla, it’s a diminutive of Latin corona in its ‘garland’ sense (rather than its ‘crown’ sense). The fact that you call your car Princess reminds me that on a 1978 visit to Oregon I bought a 1964 Plymouth Valiant from a woman who called her car Prince Valiant. The car proved valiant enough: after buying it I drove north into British Columbia, then back around to California and across Arizona and New Mexico to Austin. The car lasted another five or six years, and would have gone on longer, but one morning a heedless oncoming driver abruptly turned across my lane right in front of me and there was no way I could stop in time.
Steve Schwartzman
August 13, 2014 at 8:12 AM
Beautiful!
photoleaper
August 13, 2014 at 11:09 AM
For whatever reason, I didn’t often see this wildflower until a few years ago, but now I run across it pretty often, and even in my neighborhood.
Steve Schwartzman
August 13, 2014 at 12:59 PM
How lovely to see the flowers opening from the green shot you posted yesterday, amazing quality, beautiful cute little beauty!
marksshoesbyevamarks
August 13, 2014 at 5:03 PM
I often show multiple stages in the development of a species so you get the bigger picture. This one’s a cutie all right.
Steve Schwartzman
August 13, 2014 at 5:36 PM