Inasmuch as I have not posted any galleries online so far tbis year, I took a break from my "sabbatical" and drove down to the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve in Murrieta to photograph a species I had never seen before, Ranunculus hebecarpus. Of its common names, I like delicate buttercup the best. Its Latin specific epithet means "pubescent-fruited," from the Greek 'hebe' meaning "youth, puberty, pubescence," and it certainly is that. This annual species is described as having 0-3(5) petals and perhaps if I had been there sooner, I would have found some with more petals, but most of the flowers I saw were already in fruit, and since I had forgotten my hand lens it was really difficult to see the petals with the naked eye on those that were flowering. This is a tiny plant with petals 1-2 mm long, and I was lucky to see a few of them. The stem and leaves are soft-hairy, and the fruits have a short straight or curved beak. The picture of the fruits below next to a penny gives some idea of the diminutive nature of this plant, and I can see how it would be very easy to pass by it without noticing it. Although I was only there for a short time, I took a few other pictures as well. The Shivela Trail is in the multi-use area on the opposite side of the road from the main Reserve. The symbol ^ next to the common name indicates a taxon that was new to me when I photographed it on this field trip, and as always an asterisk indicates a non-native species. |
