Identity Crisis

Do you love a good mystery? I certainly love to curl up with a good book or watch one on television. I also like visual puzzles; on my recent walks I have come across several plants that are new to me, so with the help of the Internet I am going to try to identify them. In fact the only kind of mystery I don't enjoy is mystery food, I really am rather partial to knowing what I am eating before I dig in!

First though, the mystery photograph from last time:

This is the new leaves on my mint plant seen sparkling in the late afternoon sun. I have not looked this closely at my mint before and was fascinated by the little hairs on the leaves, another picture below.

"I love to lose myself in a mystery, to persue my reason to an O altitudo!" 

 Sir Thomas Browne

 Below is a series of fern frond emerging from the forest floor. The new growth of some ferns (fiddle heads) is edible, but the varieties that grow here on the Pacific Coast are not as far as I know.

"Fiddle-de-dee, Fiddle-de-dee, the fly shall marry the humble bee."

Nursery Rhyme

This plant was growing along the side of the road near the beach, I stopped and took pictures and asked some passersby if they knew what it was. One fellow offered to use a new iPhone app to identify it for me; he took a picture and searched but the app crashed and I was left to identify on my own. The foliage grows about a foot high and the flower heads are one to two feet above that.

Coltsfoot

Petasites frigidus, Coltsfoot or Western Coltsfoot is a perennial that blooms in early spring; I found information here:

"Stout erect stem with tight cluster of whitish to pink rayless flowers that open before leaves emerge. Flower stalks continue to lengthen as large leaves unfold. Leaves palmately divided, lobes coarsely toothed. Flowers in often purplish bell-shaped cup; male, female flowers in separate heads. Grows in bogs, stream edges, roadsides, other wet soils, at low elevations. Var. palmatus (pictured) has large leaves to 16 in. across with lobes deeply cut to base; blooms March, April. Var. nivalis has leaves less than 8 in. across, not deeply divided, with short or no teeth. Blooms July and August at high elevations, often immediately after snowmelt."

Coltsfoot can be eaten although not in large quantities due to alkaloid content: young stems and flowers can be roasted, boiled or stir fried, leaves can be cooked like spinach or leaves can be rolled up, dried and burned to ash then used as a salt substitute.

This mystery solved, Coltsfoot has strikingly pretty flower heads at this time of year.

Coltsfoot Flower head

Probably time for a picture with an ahhhhhhhhh factor. So here is a Bunny picture, only question is this Peter or Jack Rabbit?

My guess would be Jack. :)

Another mystery plant, I have seen these at the beach in the park and along the side of the road recently, a very curious looking plant:

Horsetail

This is horsetail or Equisetum; also called snake grass or puzzle grass. According to Wikipedia Horsetail "is the only living genus in the Equisetaceae, a family of vascular plants that reproduce by spores rather than seeds. Equisetum is a "living fossil", as it is the only living genus of the entire class Equisetopsida, which for over one hundred million years was much more diverse and dominated the understory of late Paleozoic forests.

They are perennial plants, either herbaceous and dying back in winter as most temperate species, or evergreen as most tropical species and the temperate species rough horsetail (E. hyemale), branched horsetail (E. ramosissimum), dwarf horsetail (E. scirpoides) and variegated horsetail (E. variegatum). They mostly grow 0.2-1.5 m tall, though the "giant horsetails" are recorded to grow as high as 2.5 m (northern giant horsetail, E. telmateia), 5 m (southern giant horsetail, E. giganteum) or 8 m (Mexican giant horsetail, E. myriochaetum), and allegedly even more."

 

The plant starts out as a odd cone shaped green shot, then develops rings of green spikes close to the stem which then open up into a grass like plant.

Horsetail plant

That solved I turn my attention to a plant that I spotted while walking along the beach, it was the small orchid like flower that attracted my attention: 

This is either Red or Purple Deadnettle. Now before you get worried about the nettle part of the name, it is called deadnettle because it does not sting. It is superficially similar to a nettle in appearance but is not related and does not sting.  It is actually a member of the mint family.

It is a common plant in wild areas and considered a weed in cultivated areas.

"It grows to 5–20 cm (rarely 30 cm) in height. The leaves have fine hairs, are green at the bottom and shade to purplish at the top; they are 2–4 cm long and broad, with a 1–2 cm petiole (leaf stalk), and wavy to serrated margins." (Wikipedia)

The leaves can be eaten in salads or cooked, but do not have much flavour.

"The zygomorphic flowers are bright red-purple, with a top hood-like petal, two lower lip petal lobes and minute fang-like lobes between.They may be produced throughout the year, including mild weather in winter. This allows bees to gather its nectar for food when few other nectar sources are available. It is also a prominent source of pollen for bees in March/April (in UK), when bees need the pollen as protein to build up their nest."

"You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass."

William Shakespeare, Hamlet

A small selection of birds to end the post: a great Blue Heron, a Junco and a Robin all stopped to check out the photographer.

Heron

Junco

Robin

More work on my Heron paintings (now 2 in progress) this week but neither finished yet. I did  finish this watercolour of a magnolia though:

Magnolia

Thank you for stopping by and thanks for your comments which are always much appreciated. I am sorry that I have not been visiting your blogs regularly recently, it's been a busy week what can I say?

Happy Whimsy Wednesday, until next time .......