SYCs have master naturalists yelling "uncle".

Birders have long been familiar with LBJs before and even after he became POTUS.  The botanical equivalent has always been SYCs, stinking yellow composites, yellow-flowered members of the Asteraceae, formerly the Compositae, daisies, sunflowers, asters, and so on, and on, and on.  It's a big family, one of the biggest.  And in grasslands, and even old fields, a heap-ton of these flower in the fall.  Everytime you turn around, there is another one.  Some TPP recognizes by sight, but very often it takes a bit of time in the herbarium and with available field guides to determine what plant it is.  TPP is sort of over-seeing a couple of master naturalist projects, and even very diligent and hard working amateurs such as these can often "give up" on STCs. Toughies such as these take lots of practice and experience. Something that doesn't come in a book or bottle.  In particular TPP found that just the sunflowers, genus Helianthus, could be a problem, so using a scanner, he constructed some cheat sheets for our local area using a combination of fairly easy to observe features to document each species.  But clearly more such sheets are needed, and next week he will be in the field to help out documenting the plant contents of some restored prairie patches.  Hopefully, no LBJ will be seen perched on an SYC, although if so, birders usually don't notice the latter.  Hang on troops, help is on the way!

Adventures in plant ID

TPP and his academic alter ego get lots of requests for plant identifications. Sometimes you get the actual plant, sometimes you get just a picture. But thanks to Eric for calling attention to this picture from a newspaper article. The article was about the penguin, but Eric wanted to know what the unmentioned plant was. Typical example of plant blindness; a penguin, obviously, but no mention of a pretty nifty looking plant.  So TPP gets the picture and that the penguin is from New Zealand. The critical piece of information is from the picture.  The plant is obviously an umbellifer, a member of the parsley/carrot family.  So some googling on NZ and the family name got us an image that provides a tentative ID: Anisotome latifolia, Campbell Island Carrot.  It's a pretty spectacular plant, so thanks Eric for giving us a challenge.  If this ID turns out to be in error, let us know.  There might be several similar species.  Oh, yeah, don't eat this "carrot"; umbellifers are bad bets for being edible. Great plant; cute penguin. 

Who will identify plants?

Today's news included an article sent to TPP about the closing of the University of Missouri herbarium, a collection some 3 to 4 times larger than the collection here.  The specimens will end up at the Missouri Botanical Garden, but another university's students will now have no opportunity to learn about the practical benefits of learning taxonomy and plant identification. A graduate student in ecology met with us this morning to get feed back on her plan of study and research proposal for a master's degree in conservation biology.  Unfortunately she cannot fulfill the taxon requirement with the course work she needs (plant taxonomy and ID) because the faculty member with that expertise has retired. Oh, she will learn a lot via field work, but it just won't be as comprehensive and as useful in the long run. The numbers don't add up for botany; too few students want to study botany, so the powers that be, and colleagues eager to take advantage of the situation to add to their areas in a zero sum game, will all argue that a new botanical hire won't be a smart move. The lack of interest puzzles TPP because plants are endlessly fascinating, but the somewhat mistaken perception that jobs, careers, and money are all in other areas is a driving force for students these days. They want security; TPP pursued what interested him in spite of all the advice to the contrary that it wouldn't work out. But it did! And all those great jobs TPP was offered in industry, all that great pay, most of those jobs and careers did not last even one full career lifetime. Will the biological sciences in the USA wake up and figure out the need for having botany programs? Sigh. In two more weeks the Botany 2015 meetings take place in Canada this year, and this is sure to be a topic of conversation.  

Stalking the wild death cap mushroom

As purveyor of plant identifications, the Phactor gets lots of requests and even urgent calls for help. Identifications require both knowledge and experience, and a good reference collection also helps a lot. Now we all make mistakes, but amateurs are going to make more mistakes than us pros. Making IDs gets harder the further away you are from your home base because you are less familiar with the flora. The Phactor would never offer his services to an emergency room in China, for example. Here's a story of a fatal mistake: a Chinese chef visiting Australia finds what he thinks are edible mushrooms and makes a delectable stir fry that kills both the chef and his assistant. Now this fellow was obviously not even a good amateur because major mushroom genera are quite widespread and much more similar around the world than seed plants, which suggests that mushroom genera are quite ancient. Death caps are in the genus Amanita, large handsome mushrooms with white spores, a persistent veil, and a cup at the base of the stipe, which isn't always this obvious. Any gatherer of wild mushrooms should know this, and that combination of traits should have warned them. A few years ago an emergency room asked me to identify some bits and pieces of mushrooms a fellow had collected and eaten, but then he felt flushed and had what felt like palpitations, so he got scared and headed for the hospital. The bits did not allow a certain ID by a long way, but they were not consistent with a death cap either. But it really didn't matter; if the mushrooms had been death caps the fellow would have been a walking deadman. The toxins can destroy your kidneys before you even feel ill. Fortunately this fellow recovered, but his enthusiasm for wild mushrooms was greatly reduced. Mycophobia can go too far too. A woman almost got physically ill after learning that the delicious mushrooms being served had been collected in my own yard (Carefully IDed.). But do be careful out there folks, some plants and some fungi don't give you a second chance. The image of Amanita phalloides (the destroying angel) is courtesy of Arvenzo and the Creative Commons.

Can I eat wild carrots?

Well, yes, is the answer while not understanding the fascination with the wild carrot's smaller, paler, more fibrous roots. However that being said, you'd better not make a mistake in identification. Poison Hemlock (Conium maculatum), not the conifer, but the carrot-like weed of Socrates fame is very similar particularly in the juvenile 1st year stage when you would want to harvest the root. And if you do make this mistake, it could well be your last. At that stage the carrot foliage is hairy and the poison hemlock hairless, but do you want to bet your life on such a character? Here's an image of both; you decide which is which. The wild carrot has a pale yellow color to the root while that of poison hemlock is white. When mature they both have flat umbels of white flowers, and many people would think the poison hemlock a wild carrot, but the purple splotches on the stem and a rank odor to the foliage readily identify the poison hemlock except you don't harvest roots at this stage because this storage organ was used having provided the energy for flowering and fruiting. Stalk the wild carrot with care. You been warned.