Large-flowered sandwort is primarily native to mountainous regions bordering the western and central parts of the Mediterranean Sea. Aptly illustrated in the first photograph, the typical habitat is dry, rocky sites.
Ragged-leaf liverwort is a widely-distributed liverwort of forests and bogs. The Encyclopedia of Life entry for Schistochilopsis incisa (now a synonymous name) displays a map with collections across the Northern Hemisphere from Arctic regions to near the equator in South America. It also uses the common name jagged notchwort.
Bouteloua gracilis photographed against a hazy sunset sky
Thirteen years ago for a blue grama BPotD entry I wrote: “I wanted more of the spikes set against the sky”. I didn’t remember that wish when I photographed this a few weeks ago, I was just attracted to the curled spike against the smoke-hazed sunset sky (due to the fires in British Columbia).
The fifth fabaceous species in this series on the pea family, Clianthus puniceus is a critically-endangered species now only extant on a small island (~5ha or ~12 acres) within a harbour of New Zealand’s North Island. Threats include summer droughts, competition from weeds, and browsing animals, including rodents.
Cladrastis is a genus of about a half dozen species of pinnate-leaved, deciduous trees in the pea family (Fabaceae), all of them native to Asia except Cladrastis kentukea (American yellowwood), which is native to southeastern North America, and the only widely cultivated species. Though not particularly common or well-known locally, Cladrastis are beautiful trees. For ease of identification, they stand out as among the few alternately arranged, pinnately compound-leaved temperate trees in cultivation with individual pinnae that are often alternately arranged along the rachis of the leaf. Like Cercis (redbud), Maackia, Styphnolobium (scholar tree) and Gleditsia (honey locust), Cladrastis species are rare among the Fabaceae in that they are not associated with root-inhabiting, nitrogen-fixing bacteria. The genus is most closely related to Maackia, but Cladrastis have alternate pinnae and the petiole base encloses an axillary bud.
“Here are sweet peas, on tip-toe for a flight: with wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white, and taper fingers catching at all things, to bind them all about with tiny rings,” wrote John Keats of an old cultivar of sweet pea, ‘Painted Lady’.
