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Difficult Creek, Difficult Management Choices, W. John Hayden
Difficult Creek, Difficult Management Choices, W. John Hayden
Biology Faculty Publications
Virginia is blessed with many botanical wonderlands; see Chapter 4 of the Flora of Virginia (Weakley et al. 2012) for thumbnail sketches describing 50 of these special places. One such treasure, Difficult Creek Natural Area Preserve, is home to a thriving population of the 2019 VNPS Wildflower of the year, Ceanothus americanus (New Jersey Tea). Paradoxically, however, our featured wildflower of last year is inextricably linked to a difficult conservation management decision.
Wildflower Of The Year—Cymes, Not Corymbs!, W. John Hayden
Wildflower Of The Year—Cymes, Not Corymbs!, W. John Hayden
Biology Faculty Publications
I hit a snag while composing the text for this year’s wildflower of the year brochure on Wild Geranium, Geranium maculatum. The problem concerned the proper descriptive term for its inflorescence, i.e., the pattern in which its flowers are grouped. In more than one source, I read that, for the family Geraniaceae, inflorescences are cymes (Figures 1 and 2), but those same sources indicated that inflorescences of Geranium maculatum are corymbs (Figure 4). That conflict caused me to scratch my head because cymes and corymbs are fundamentally different kinds of inflorescences.
Wild Geranium, Geranium Maculatum, 2020 Virginia Wildflower Of The Year, W. John Hayden
Wild Geranium, Geranium Maculatum, 2020 Virginia Wildflower Of The Year, W. John Hayden
Biology Faculty Publications
Geranium maculatum was named by Linnaeus in his monumental Species Plantarum, published in1753. Geranium has long served as the type genus of Geraniaceae. The genus and family name are derived from the Greek word geranos, crane, in reference to the elongate fruiting styles common throughout the family. English common names like Cranesbill and Storksbill for relatives of Wild Geranium similarly refer to their elongate fruiting-stage styles. The species portion of the binomial, maculatum, means spotted, perhaps a reference to slight irregularities in petal pigmentation sometimes observed in this species.