Tag Archives: Bodie Hills

Psathyrotes, Psathyrotopsis, and Trichoptilium (Oh, My!)

Posted on January 14, 2024 | 2 comments

Recently I found myself looking closely at keys, descriptions, and photos of Psathyrotes annua (Annual turtleback) and P. ramosissima (“regular” Turtleback)—both rayless members of the Sunflower family, Asteraceae—to clear up some lingering uncertainty over how to distinguish the two. Then one taxon led to another and it became a larger project.

Psatyrotes annua is familiar to many who have wandered the perimeter of Mono Lake. It thrives in the sparsely vegetated sands and gravelly pumice of Mono’s prehistoric and post-1945 receding shorelines. It’s often misidentified as P. ramosissima, which so far, has probably not been found in the Mono Basin, but is common in the Mojave, Colorado, and western Sonoran Deserts. These two can be distinguished as follows:

  • Leaf blades generally clearly divided by deeply-set, anastomosing (cross-connecting) veins into irregular, ovate to polygonal areas (suggesting the segmented “scutes” of a turtle’s carapace); outer phyllaries ± wide, spatulate to obovate, widely spreading to reflexed; florets 21–26 (16–32) per head; pappus of 120–140 bristles in 3–4 series …… Psathyrotes ramosissima
  • Leaf blades generally weakly or not at all divided by veins into scute-like areas; outer phyllaries ± narrow, mostly lance-linear, ± erect to spreading; florets 13–16 (10–20) per head; pappus of 35–50 bristles in one series …… Psathyrotes annua
Psathyrotes ramosissima
Left: © Chloe & Trevor Van Loon/iNaturalist, Right: © Tom Chester/iNaturalist
Psathyrotes annua
Left: © Tim Messick/iNaturalist, Right: © Jim Morefield/iNaturalist

Exploring this small genus further, one finds there are currently three species in Psathyrotes, another close relative formerly in Psathyrotes now banished to Trichoptilium—a monotypic (one species) genus—and three more close relatives housed in Psathyrotopsis, a newer genus carved out of Psathyrotes.

Apparently no single key has been crafted that includes all 7 species of Psathyrotes, Trichoptilium, and Psathyrotopsis. The Jepson eFlora includes two Psathyrotes and the Trichoptilium. The Flora of North America (FNA) includes all three Psathyrotes, the Trichoptilium and one species of Psathyrotopsis, but not the other two, which appear to be narrow endemics in southern Coahuila, Mexico. Both Jepson and FNA make you work through ponderous keys for the entire sunflower family to distinguish these three genera. A paper on “Taxonomy of Psathyrotes” (Strother and Pilz 1975) includes a key to all of the taxa included in FNA, but not the third Psathyrotopsis, because it was described later (Turner 1993).

So, why not write a straightforward key that includes all seven taxa? Not so simple, it turns out, because existing keys don’t all use the same set of characters, and that newest species endemic to southern Coahuila (Psathyrotopsis hintoniorum) has never been included in a key with its relatives—and the paper describing it refers the reader to the formal description in Latin to figure out what distinguishes it from Psathyrotopsis purpusii. Thank goodness for Google Translate!

Below is an image of my key. (The very limited text formatting abilities in this WordPress blog don’t lend themselves to an indented key longer than 1 or 2 couplets.) The key is adapted from Baldwin 2012, Strother 2006a, Strother 2006b, Strother and Pilz 1975, and Turner 1973 (citations below). It has been modified from the originals by adding species, changing some terminology, rearranging some couplets, and adding some character states.

Here are photos of the rest of the species in Psathyrotes, Psathyrotopsis, and Trichoptilium (thank you to the iNaturalist contributors who allow their images to be used non-commercially!)

Psathyrotes pilifera Both: © slothiker/iNaturalist
Psathyrotyopsis hintoniorum
Left: © Arizona State University, Right: © New York Botanical Garden
(both are duplicate sheets of Guy Nesom 7648)
Psathyrotopsis purpusii Both: © José G. Flores Ventura/iNaturalist
Psathyrotopsis scaposa
Left: © Matt Reala/iNaturalist, Right: © Joey Santore/iNaturalist
Trichoptilium incisum
Left: © Jessica Irwin/iNaturalist, Right: © Irene/iNaturalist

And here are maps showing the known distribution of each species, produced (by me) using QGIS and Adobe Illustrator, based on occurrence data (the dots) from specimen locations served by the SEINet Portal Network and “Research Grade” observations from iNaturalist (note: some dots could be mismapped or misidentifications). Colored shading shows the approximate generalized distribution of each taxon.

References:
Baldwin, Bruce G. 2012. adapted from Strother (2006), Psathyrotes, in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=571, accessed on November 28, 2022.
Strother, John L., 2006a. Psathyrotes in Flora of North America 21:416–418 (http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=126897), accessed on November 28, 2022
Strother, John L., 2006b. Psathyrotopsis in Flora of North America 21:364–365 (http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=126898), accessed on November 28, 2022.
Strother, John L and George Pilz. 1975. “TAXONOMY OF PSATHYROTES (COMPOSITAE: SENECIONEAE).” Madroño; a West American journal of botany 23, 24–40. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/partpdf/169365
Turner, B. L. 1993. “A new species of Psathyrotopsis (Asteraceae, Helenieae) from Coahuila, México.” Phytologia 75, 143–146. https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.part.17305.

Copyright © Tim Messick 2024. All rights reserved.

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Additions to Plants of the Bodie Hills in 2023, with an update on “Mystery Plants”

Posted on October 26, 2023 | 2 comments

Following a winter of heavy snowfall and continued rain into the spring, 2023 has been a great year for additions to the flora of the Bodie Hills. Here’s a list of species added, confirmed, or newly expected to occur in the Bodie Hills, as of mid-October, 2023. These additions and updates will all be included in the 2024 edition of “Plants of the Bodie Hills,” available for download early next year.

Species ADDED, not previously known to occur in the Bodie Hills

Lupinus uncialis (Lilliput lupine or Inch-high lupine) is the most exciting discovery this year in the Bodie Hills. It was found in large numbers at The Wildland Conservancy’s Bodie Hills Preserve south of Bridgeport and a day later at Travertine Hot Springs (here and here). Of all the lupines in the world (more than 260 species, mostly in western North and South America), this one is the smallest. Why has this never been seen in (or even near) the Bodie Hills before? Maybe this tiny annual thrives only in wet years. And it’s very inconspicuous: big plants measure about 4 cm across and 2 cm tall, and the tiny flowers (1–2 per inflorescence) are mostly concealed among the leaves and around the edges of the plant. Who pollinates this thing?

This find counts as a range extension of 87.5 miles miles (140.8 km) from the nearest collection (in Fairview Valley, Nevada), or about 67 miles (108 km) from the nearest confirmed observation in iNaturalist (near Gabbs Valley, Nevada). It occurs across much of central and northern Nevada, plus southeast Oregon and probably eastern Modoc County, California (though documentation for Modoc County is scant). Lupinus uncialis is on CNPS list 2B.2 (rare, and probably moderately threatened in California).

Lupinus uncialis
Micromonolepis pusilla

Micromonolepis pusilla (Dwarf Monolepis) was chanced upon in the middle of Coyote Springs Road at Mormon Meadow. This small annual with plump little reddish leaves occurs more often in “alkaline flats” and is very inconspicuous (especially when on reddish soil). It occurs eastward to Wyoming and north to Washington, but is on CNPS list 2B.3 (rare, but not very threatened in California).

Platanthera tescamnis (Great Basin bog orchid) has been found at a remote spring in the northeastern Bodie Hills in Mineral County. This is only the second orchid known to occur in the Bodie Hills (along with Corallorhiza maculata in Masonic Gulch).

Phacelia curvipes (Isaiah Woodard/iNaturalist)

Phacelia curvipes (Washoe phacelia) has been found at two locations in the southwestern Bodie Hills (here and here). It’s a small annual with blue and white flowers, somewhat like the locally very common Phacelia humilis, but with more decumbent, spreading (rather than erect) stems. Phacelia curvipes has been seen and collected in many places near the west edges of the Mojave and Great Basin deserts in California and Nevada, and across to southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, but these are the first records of it in the Bodie Hills.

Saponaria officinalis (Common soapwort, Bouncing-bet, Wild sweet William, etc.) is native to southern Europe. It’s an attractive, but unwanted weed along Lee Vining Creek and in other moist, disturbed areas. It was recently observed beside the Caltrans Sand/Salt Storage facility on Conway Summit.

Species CONFIRMED, previously considered likely to occur, or not documented for many years in the Bodie Hills

Collomia grandiflora (Large-flowered Collomia or Grand Collomia) is fairly common in mountains across the west from southern California to southern British Columbia. It’s been seen in the Sweetwaters and Wassuk Range, so was considered possible in the Bodie Hills. This year, Jeff Bisbee found it on a slope north of Mormon Meadow.

Eriogonum hookeri (Hooker’s wild buckwheat) has been documented in the Bodie Hills, again only at Travertine Hot Springs, three times previously: in 1937 by G. A. Graham, in 1950 by Philip Munz, and in 2003 by Dean Taylor. This year it was first noticed at Travertine by Chloe and Trevor Van Loon, and soon after that by several other visitors. It also occurs in the Inyo-White Mountains and across most of Nevada to central Utah.

LEFT: Collomia grandiflora (at a site near Sonora Junction); RIGHT: Eriogonum hookeri

Erythranthe rubella (Redstem monkeyflower) can be difficult to distinguish from the very common E. breweri, and sometimes from the also common E. suksdorfii. All three tend to be very tiny annuals. A plant identified as E. rubella and confirmed by monkeyflower scholar Naomi Fraga has been observed at “Sage Flat,” east of Hwy 395 and a bit north of the Little Bodie Mine historical marker. Erythranthe rubella is probably more common than realized in the Bodie Hills, as misidentifications may be common.

Malacothrix glabrata (Desert dandelion) is common in arid areas of western North America, and has been seen east of the Bodie Hills. Recently, a 1983 collection by Glenn Clifton in Red Creek Wash appeared in the herbarium databases.

Sairocarpus kingii, aka Antirrhinum kingii (Least snapdragon), is found mostly in the western Great Basin, east of the Sierra Nevada, but also to eastern Oregon and central Utah. It was collected on 6/16/1949 by Philip Munz at Travertine Hot Springs. In 2023, 74 years later, it was finally seen there again. There’s another occurrence just north of the Bodie Hills, near the south end of the Pine Grove Hills, in Lyon County.

Silene nuda (Sticky catchfly) was the tentative ID of a plant photographed along Cow Camp Road by a resident of Bridgeport Valley. The photos were a bit unclear, so there was some uncertainty about the ID. The site was visited in July 2023 by Patrick Silbey and confirmed as Silene nuda with an excellent set of photos.

Penstemon deustus (Hot rock penstemon) is fairly common from about Alpine County to northwest California, Washington, Oregon, and Wyoming. It seems to be uncommon south of about Alpine County. This year it was finally found on the northwest edge of the Bodie Hills north of the Bridgeport Reservoir dam.

LEFT: Silene nuda (Patrick Silbey/iNaturalist); RIGHT: Penstemon deustus (at a site east of Monitor Pass).

Species POSSIBLY in the Bodie Hills, but still needing confirmation

Allium lemmonii (at a site west of Monitor Pass)

Allium lemmonii (Lemmon’s onion) may have been found on a hillside near Success Mine. The ovary crests are very distinctive and should make identifying A. lemmonii easy from fresh flowers, but closer photos or a collection are needed to confirm which species was seen here.

Sphaeralcea grossulariifolia (Gooseberryleaf globemallow) has been found (in 2020 and 2022) on the northwest side of the East Walker River north of Murphy Pond, at the very edge of the Sweetwater Mountains—a stone’s throw from the Bodie Hills, so it should be here too, perhaps across the river. Although fairly common throughout the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau, it just barely enters California near Topaz Lake, the southern Wellington Hills east of Topaz, and here along the East Walker River. It’s on CNPS list 2B.3 (rare, but not very threatened in California).

Updates on the “Mystery Plants” post of April 2023

The Aphyllon near Aurora
The Aphyllon seen previously along the road to Aurora, but not in a condition enabling identification, remains a mystery. I didn’t get over there this year and to my knowledge, no one else has looked. Next year, perhaps.

The Silene near Cow Camp Road
As noted above, the Silene nuda at a site along Cow Camp road was confirmed this past July.

The Pines near Millersville
The pines on a high slope north of Potato Peak, near the site of Millersville, also remain a mystery. Road conditions up Aurora Canyon were terrible for most or all of the summer (so I’m told), so access to this location would have been difficult also.

A New Mystery Plant, Maybe: An Allium near Success Mine
The wild onion mentioned above, possibly Allium lemmonii, counts as a new “mystery plant” needing a return visit to confirm its identity.

Copyright © Tim Messick 2023. All rights reserved.

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A History of Plant Collecting in the Bodie Hills

Posted on August 28, 2023 | Leave a comment

Back in March 2023, I did a presentation for the Nevada Native Plant Society on plants of the Bodie Hills. One small part of that presentation was a review of the history of botanical collecting, and more recently, iNaturalist observations of plants, in the Bodie Hills. It was an interesting topic to research, so what follows is an expanded summary of my findings, along with some charts and maps.

Collections of Plant Specimens in Herbaria

I compiled a list of all plant collections in the Bodie Hills using search tools of the Consortium of California Herbaria (CCH). Their CCH2 portal serves data from all specimens (vascular and nonvascular, in California and beyond) housed in all 55 CCH member herbaria. These data portals allow anyone to search digitized records of herbarium specimens in a variety of ways. Because about a third of the Bodie Hills is in Nevada, and CCH2 data are not restricted to California, I used the CCH2 portal to find and download records of 4,268 plant collections throughout the Bodie Hills from 1866 through 2021.

Here, then, is a timeline (below), summarizing the number of herbarium specimens collected over various periods of time. Below each of the green bars are the names of botanists who collected the most during those periods.

The timeline above may appear too small to read on your screen, so below I’ve divided the same thing into three larger sections.

The earliest collections listed were of Ericameria nauseosa and Sphaeralcea ambigua by Henry Bolander in 1866. The locations were recorded as simply “near Bridgeport,” so these may not have been exactly in the Bodie Hills. Bolander was an energetic collector while he was California State Botanist, 1864–1873 (and later, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, then San Francisco Superintendent of Schools).

Thirty-two years later, in 1898, Joseph Congdon collected Atriplex canescens, Opuntia polyacantha, and probably also Artemisia nova along a what he called the “Mono to Bodie (Desert Road)” and a “side-road between Goat Ranch and Bridgeport.” I believe these were along what is now Coyote Springs Road in Bridgeport Canyon. This was for many years the main route from Mono Basin to Bridgeport, before roads were established over Conway Summit. Congdon was a lawyer who lived in Mariposa, 1882–1905, and contributed significantly to early botanical exploration, particularly in the Yosemite region.

Harvey Monroe Hall made at least 7 collections in the hills between Mono Basin and Bridgeport in 1918, 1921, and 1925. Hall at that time worked at the Carnegie Institution Division of Plant Sciences at Stanford University; throughout his life he collected over 200,000 specimens. Philip A. Munz made a few collections in the same area in 1928. Munz was then a young professor of botany at Pomona College. Decades later, Munz and David Keck authored A California Flora (UC Press 1959), which became a standard reference for identifying California plants for more than 30 years.

Botanical collecting took a leap forward and across the state line in 1929, when “Mrs. John D. Wright” collected at least 29 specimens around Aurora. Ysabel Galban Wright, born in Cuba in 1885, married John Dutton Wright (founder of the Wright Oral School for the Deaf in New York City, where Helen Keller was an early student) in 1912. The couple relocated to Santa Barbara about 1919, where Ysabel became an avid gardener with a special interest in cacti and California native plants. She visited Aurora during a botanical collecting trip that also included Mono and Tuolumne counties in 1929.

During the 1930s several botanists collected in the area, notably Carl B. Wolf (Botanist at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden 1930–1945), and G. A. Graham and T. M. Hendrix (both collecting and documenting vegetation in 1937 for what was then Mono National Forest).

In the 1940s, additional names familiar to California botanists appear in the list, including Annie Alexander & Louise Kellogg, Ira Wiggins & Reed Rollins, Roxanna Ferris & Laura Lorraine, and again, Philip Munz (who took a particular interest in the flora at Travertine Hot Springs). It was in the summer of 1945 that Wiggins & Rollins collected type specimens of both Streptanthus oliganthus (Masonic Mountain jewelflower) and Boechera bodiensis (Bodie Hills rock-cress). Also in the summer of ’45, Alexander & Kellogg collected type specimens of Cusickiella quadricostata (Bodie Hills Cusickiella) and Phacelia monoensis (Mono County Phacelia). Others collecting here during the ’40s included C. Leo Hitchcock, Robert F. Hoover, Beecher Crampton, and Malcolm A. Nobs & S. Galen Smith.

During the 1950s, Philip Munz visited the Chemung Mine area. Thomas C. Fuller (Plant Taxonomist for the California Department of Food and Agriculture) collected along the west side of the Bodie Hills. Clare B. Hardham collected along the Bodie-Masonic Road near Potato Peak.

In the 1960s, Jack Reveal (forest ranger) and his son James L. Reveal (renowned Eriogonum taxonomist and professor) collected in the area. Clare Hardham again visited the Rough Creek/Potato Peak area, and Masonic Mountain. Darley F. Howe collected near Bodie.

During the 1970s, Dean Taylor collected extensively throughout the Mono Basin and surrounding areas. Other collectors included Dennis Breedlove, Glenn Clifton, Ken Genz, and George K. Helmkamp (chemistry professor at UC Riverside). A spike in collecting occurred in 1979, because that’s when I arrived on the scene, collecting for my MA thesis (a local flora of the Bodie Hills) at Humboldt State University. I continued collecting for that project in 1980-81.

During the early 1980s, Matt Lavin, then a graduate student at UNR, collected extensively in the northern Bodie Hills for his floristic study of the upper Walker River watershed. Others active in the ’80s included Arnold (Jerry) Tiehm (Herbarium Curator at University of Nevada Reno) and Jan Nachlinger (plant ecologist), Dennis Breedlove, Glenn Clifton, Mary DeDecker, Barbara Ertter, and Hugh Mozingo (author of Shrubs of the Great Basin: A Natural History).

During the 1990s and 2000s there was less collecting in the Bodie Hills, though Tom Schewich and others were quite active in and around the Mono Basin.

In the 2010s Ann Howald started collecting intensively throughout Mono County, including the Bodie Hills. Jerry Tiehm and Jan Nachlinger made more visits to the Nevada side of the range. In recent years, Ann Howald (preparing a Flora of Mono County) and James André (of the Granite Mountains Desert Research Center) have been the most active collectors in the Bodie Hills.

In summary, my search produced a list of about 4,268 specimens from the Bodie Hills, collected from 1866 to 2021. I say “about”, because a few were probably collected outside the area but their locations were mis-mapped or misinterpreted as being within the Bodie Hills (erring on the side of too many specimens). On the other hand, some specimens probably exist that have not been digitized and georeferenced, or reside in herbaria that are outside the scope of CCH2 (erring on the side of too few specimens). Also, the search area boundary is a bit arbitrary in some areas and can be adjusted to include more or fewer collections.

Much more interesting than the exact number, though, is to see the names of people who have collected there, if only briefly, over the decades. Many of them became well known for their contributions to western American botany.

You can generate an updated search, and change the boundaries or other search criteria if you wish, HERE.

Observations of Plants on iNaturalist

Several years ago an ambitious citizen science project called iNaturalist came on the scene, providing me and many others with a different way to document biodiversity—by uploading photographs of identifiable species, along with location, date/time, and sometimes other metadata for each observation. There are many caveats to consider in assessing the quality and value of any particular set of iNaturalist data, but on the whole, it’s an effective way for anyone from casual, curious non-specialists to seasoned professional biologists to quickly share observations, get feedback, and learn from what others have posted. Physical specimens enable types of research that cannot be done from photographs alone, but I think iNaturalist provides a useful compliment to traditional herbarium-based collections.

The timeline below shows plant observations in the Bodie Hills posted to iNaturalist, by year, from 2012 through 2022. In the background, for comparison, are the numbers of herbarium specimens from the charts above. The number of observations is growing rapidly. Many of these observations are mine, but certainly not all, and some very noteworthy observations (documenting species neither collected nor observed previously in the Bodie Hills) have been posted by others.

You can generate an updated search in iNaturalist, and revise the search criteria if you wish, HERE.

Locations of Collections and Observations

The maps below show you that both collections and observations have been concentrated along (1) roads that provide relatively easy access and (2) other popular areas to visit in the Bodie Hills.

Little or no collecting or observing has occurred in some other areas. These are among the more remote and difficult-to-access corners of the Bodie Hills. Such areas include:
• Mount Hicks and Spring Peak
• Aurora Crater
• Bald Peak
• Southeast perimeter of the Bodie Hills
• Atastra Creek and the middle reaches of Rough Creek
• Masonic Gulch north of Masonic Lower Town
• Aspen groves south of upper Aurora Canyon
• Big Alkali

Treks into these remote areas could be rewarded with interesting discoveries!

Townsendia scapigera

Copyright © Tim Messick 2023. All rights reserved.

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