| BEN |
| BOTANICAL ELECTRONIC NEWS |
|---|
| ISSN 1188-603X |
| No. 460 October 16, 2012 | aceska@telus.net | Victoria, B.C. |
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Botany BC is an annual gathering of professional and amateur botanists and plant enthusiasts from B.C. and nearby areas. ('BOTANY' is an acronym for 'Botanical Organization To Accomplish Nothing Yearly', and I can happily report that once again we achieved that goal.) Botany BC 2012 - our 28th Botany BC - took place July 26-29 at Manning Park.
A total of about 90 keen participants assembled in Manning Park to enjoy field expeditions, technical presentations, good food and excellent company, and some tomfoolery. Events began on Thursday evening when we gathered at Windy Joe's Hall (Manning Park Resort) for sumptuous snacks and an outstanding presentation on Wildflowers of Manning Park by skilled photographer Ron Long. For those who can't get enough of exquisite wildflower photos, Virginia Skilton's stunners of Manning Park Wildflowers were also on display on a table at Windy Joe's.
Friday the group divided in two. One group began the day in subalpine meadows near Blackwall Peak, where Andy MacKinnon and Jim & Rosamund Pojar led the meadow meanderings. A highlight was re-locating some of Jim's PhD plots, and Jim pontificating about floral morphology and pollination. The other group began the day at Cascade Lookout with Hans Roemer and Kristen and James Miskelly to tour the Dry Ridge Trail offering a large diversity of drought tolerant species on the sunny side and Vaccinium scoparium-rich coniferous forest on the shady slope with a couple of stops on the way back to Cascade lookout to view some interesting seepages along the road. The highlight on this excursion was to see a large specimen of the rare Tweedy's lewisia (Cistanthe tweedy). These two groups switched locations for the afternoon, with trip leaders staying put.
Friday evening we had a barbeque dinner in the Resort's Cascade Room, followed by compelling presentations back at Windy Joe's by newlyweds James & Kristen Miskelly (The Other Side of the Cascades) and Tory Stevens (Protected Areas in the 21st Century: Galloping with the Climate). Those with energy remaining gathered around the campfire for singing and convivial chat.
On Saturday morning participants were again divided in two groups, one led by Hans Roemer and Ron Long and the other by Kristen and James Miskelly. Two interesting wetland and lakeshore habitats were on the program, the Rein Orchid Trail and Twenty Minute Lake Trail (which with botanists, of course, took much longer than 20 minutes to circumnavigate!). To pick out just one of many attractions, Twenty Minute Lake offered the rare and showy Epilobium x treleasianum, a hybrid between E. luteum and E. ciliatum, with both these parents in close vicinity.
Saturday afternoon was left open for participant's to choose their own walks so armed with Manning Park plant lists (available on the Botany BC website) folks set off to explore and enjoy all corners of Manning Park.
Saturday evening featured surpassingly good presentations by Gerry Allen (DNA analyses of widespread alpine plants and what we can learn from them) and Washington's Joe Arnett (Rare Plants across the Border: Introducing the new Field Guide to the Rare Plants of Washington). This was followed by our Botany BC AGM, always a bit of a free-for-all with this anarchic crew, where it was decided that Botany BC 2013 will be held in either Revelstoke or Golden. The evening wrapped up with another campfire sing-along, including the annual performance of the Botany Boogie.
And just in case folks hadn't had their fill of botanizing, there were 'on- your-way-home' hikes Sunday morning to Rhododendron Flats (led by Ron Long) and Sumallo Grove (led by Hans Roemer).
This was certainly one of the best Botany BC's ever! Thanks to organizers Hans Roemer, Judith Holm, Ryan Batten, Mandy Ross, James and Kristen Miskelly and Elizabeth Easton for their exemplary performance as well as all of the speakers and the special technical help provided by Ron Long and Dawn Hanna. For more information about Botany BC, and for TBA location and dates for Botany BC 2013, see http://members.shaw.ca/botanybc/ .
Plate: http://mpb.ou.edu/ben/460/ben460.pdf
A new species of monkeyflower, Mimulus sookensis (Phrymaceae), has recently been described. Mimulus sookensis B.G. Benedict et al., also commonly known as "shy monkeyflower", is found on the southern tip of Vancouver Island of British Columbia, Canada and also in the valleys of western Washington, Oregon, and one known site in California (Benedict et al. 2012). It was originally discovered in 1991 by Fred Ganders on Vancouver Island, but is most likely not a newly-formed polyploid species. Previous reports of fixed heterozygosity at allozyme and nuclear loci (Benedict 1993; Sweigart et al. 2008), as well as crossing barriers between M. sookensis and M. guttatus Fisch. ex DC. and M. nasutus Greene (Sweigart et al. 2008) suggested that Mimulus sookensis was an allotetraploid, and that it was derived from M. guttatus and M. nasutus. Chromosome counts verified that M. sookensis has n = 28 chromosomes, while M. nasutus and M. guttatus have n=14 chromosomes. A broadened sample of six nuclear genes confirmed that Mimulus sookensis is derived from M. guttatus and M. nasutus, and revealed that Mimulus sookensis is likely the product of recurrent formation (Modliszewski & Willis 2012).
Mimulus sookensis is easily identified as distinct from M. guttatus, due to the small flowers of M. sookensis and large flowers of M. guttatus. However, distinguishing between M. sookensis and M. nasutus can be quite difficult due to the fact that both_M. sookensis and M. nasutus tend to have extremely small, and sometimes cleistogamous flowers. In Mimulus sookensis, however, despite the small size of the flowers, the pistil tends to be slightly exserted, and the corolla tube is funnel-shaped rather than cylindrical, as is the case with M. nasutus. Also, the leaf margins and calyx of M. sookensis are often very finely spotted with anthocyanin, a trait that is not frequently observed in M. nasutus. When Mimulus nasutus is found in the same locale as M. guttatus, hybrids between the two species are often observed. Hybrids between M. guttatus and M. nasutus often have intermediate to large flowers, with a prominent anthocyanin blotch on the middle lower corolla lobe. When hybrids are observed, it is a good indication that both M. guttatus and M. nasutus are present in the population, although it does not exclude the possibility that all three species are present. Although M. sookensis co-occurs commonly throughout its range with M. guttatus, it infrequently co-occurs with M. nasutus.
Mimulus sookensis and M. nasutus may both be confused with the distantly related Mimulus alsinoides Douglas ex Benth. of section Paradanthus (Beardsley et al. 2004), which also has small flowers and may grow in wet seeps and ditches alongside M. sookensis, M. nasutus, and M. guttatus. Mimulus alsinoides can be distinguished from both M. sookensis and M. nasutus from its more or less evenly-toothed calyx with blunt lower lobes; a prominent round anthocyanin blotch marks the lower middle corolla lobe, and streaks of anthocyanin can be found in the upper throat of the corolla (Pennell 1951).
Key to the Mimulus species of southern Vancouver Island's dry rockoutcrops
I feel that I played a significant role in the naming of this species—here's why. I met Bev Benedict in the Royal BC Museum herbarium in 1992, when she was working on her M.Sc. thesis (Benedict 1993) with Fred Ganders as her supervisor. It did not take Bev long to convince me that the small Mimulus we see all around Victoria was a new, unrecognized species, different from the larger, and larger-flowered Mimulus guttatus. Bev went through the Victoria collections and annotated all specimens with small flowers as "Mimulus queue". Bev told me that the epithet "queue" stood for a question-mark.
I lost some sleep over that name and after few days, I wrote to Bev and to Fred Ganders: "Look, since the scientific names are considered to be Latin, people will read your name as "Mimulus kew-eh-ooh-eh" and will take it for a Hawaiian name, and since Fred used to work in Hawaii, they will think that it is a Hawaiian species."
After receiving my note, Bev and Fred changed the name to Mimulus sookensis. As proof, look at the type specimen: besides it being the holotype of Mimulus sookensis, it is also the holotype of Mimulus queue, nomen nudum: http://mpb.ou.edu/ben/460/ben460.pdf
I am sure there are still quite a few specimens in Pacific Northwest herbaria that are annotated by Bev as "Mimulus queue", and all should be re-labeled "Mimulus sookensis".
1a. Lower calyx lobes blunt-toothed, anthocyanin streaks mark upper throat of corolla .... M. alsinoides
1b. Calyx lobes acute, anthocyanin spotting on lower throat of corolla, not in streaks.
2a. Corolla 18–45 mm long, pistil exerted from the calyx, lower calyx teeth straight in maturity;
diploid ............................ M. guttatus
2b. Corolla <30 mm long, pistil scarcely or not exerted from the calyx, lower calyx teeth fold over
sharply in maturity, nearly closing the orifice.
3a. Pistil included within or equal to calyx, corolla tube nearly cylindrical, plants from 5–50
cm tall, large ones with quadrangular winged stem, diploid ..................... M. nasutus
3b. Pistil usually exserted from calyx (up to 3 mm) corolla tube narrowly funnel-shaped (infund-
ibular), plants from 5–25 cm tall, stems tending to quadrangular but not winged, tetraploid
.............................................................................. M. sookensis
References
Editorial Note
The full name of Mimulus sookensis with all the authorities should be cited as:
Mimulus sookensis B.G. Benedict, Modliszewski, Sweigart, N.H. Martin, Ganders & John H. Willis
MIMULUS SOOKENSIS: HOW THE SHY MONKEYFLOWER GOT ITS SCIENTIFIC NAME
From: Adolf Ceska aceska@telus.net
Reference
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