Humans have been brightening their otherwise dark and dreary December domiciles with evergreen boughs of holly since at least the age of the Druids. The practice has continued into the modern era, with the festive shiny green leaves and bright red berry-like fruits (botanically-speaking a drupe with four hardened stones) becoming synonymous with the Christmas […]
If two plant species native to Europe are introduced to North America and then hybridize to produce fertile offspring, do these descendants constitute a new species? That is the question Marion Ownbey posed in a 1950 paper in the American Journal of Botany. Ownbey, curator of the Washington State University herbarium from 1939-1974, discovered that […]
The paintbrushes (genus Castilleja) are a genus of about 200 mostly herbaceous plants, distributed across the Americas and northern Asia. They are, in many respects, annoying. Other plants feel this way because paintbrushes are hemiparasites, which derive part of their nutrition from the roots of their host (hemi- means half), and the remainder by photosynthesis. […]
Oaks (genus Quercus), part of the beech family (Fagaceae), are one of the most evolutionarily successful groups in the Northern Hemisphere, boasting some 500 species and holding keystone roles in dozens of ecotypes. But from the vantage point of Washington State University, it can be easy to miss that, as there are no oaks native […]
Charles Vancouver Piper (1867-1926) wrote the first flora of the state of Washington (1906) and was the first botanist on the faculty of the State College of Washington (now WSU), as well as the founder of the WSU Herbarium. In the course of his professional duties, Piper described many new species native to Washington, including […]
John Leiberg and John Sandberg were Swedish-born botanists hired by the US Department of Agriculture in 1893 to document the flora of the “Plains of the Columbia” in north-central Washington. Although they were not the earliest botanists to explore Washington, Leiberg and Sandberg were the first to record detailed information on climate, soils, and vegetation […]
One of the things non-taxonomists find most frustrating about taxonomists is their propensity for changing species names. A case in point is Wyoming kittentails, a relatively common perennial herb in the Plantain family (Plantaginaceae – though until recently included in the figwort family, Scrophulariaceae, but that is another story!) with an elongate spike of bluish-purple […]
American beech (Fagus grandifolia) is the only member of the beech genus native to North America. It is abundant across much of the Eastern Deciduous Forest ecoregion of the eastern United States and southern Canada, ranging as far west as Wisconsin and Texas. Beech is in the same family (Fagaceae) as chestnuts (Castanea) and oaks […]
New plant species are still being discovered and named every year. Sometimes, a species avoids detection by taxonomists for many years because of its diminutive size or strong resemblance to another species. In other cases, species are overlooked because they are restricted to small geographic areas or highly specialized (and limited) habitats – species that […]
The genus Dryas in the rose family is comprised of 15 circumboreal species characterized by saucer-shaped flowers with 8-12 white or yellow petals, evergreen leaves with round-toothed margins and dense pubescence on the underside, and clusters of dry fruits capped by persistent feathery styles. The fruiting heads bear a strong resemblance to the Truffula trees […]