So to make this winter a little better my goal until I see a violet blooming is to ID one plant a day. Most of these will come from my back log of pressed plants (The UP and also some Texas plants) but occasionally some specimens might come up from some of my friends throughout the country and the world!
So to kick it off here is the first plant of the year, appropriately a Viola!
Viola cucullata
Specimen from the Huron Mountain Club. Northwest Marquette County MI. In a moist hardwood stand. Date collected: 4/29/12. Collected by Dennis Riege.
This plant came to me from a researcher in the Huron Mountain Club who is studying vegetation changes in Northern forests. Anyhow since Northern Michigan is the local herbarium (Support your local herbarium!) he was kind enough to use us as the depository of his specimens. In exchange our herbarium assistant and myself are helping him with any plant ID. Violets are always tricky and its important to make a good collection if you are going to take it home. Roots, habit , mature and young leaves, well pressed flower are all really important for future ID. Luckily, when this specimen arrived it was in this condition.
Marsh Violet is one of our common violets in moist hardwood forests (the only nice thing violets do to help you in their ID is they tend to sort themselves into habitats and not overlap that much). The ID is straight forward. The combination of large flowers, flowers that are above the leaves, habitat in hardwood forests, and the serrate edging on the leaves allow for a good place to start. Be careful there is albino flowers in this species, but they are rare. Also a strongly cordate leaf will distinguish this interesting beauty.
-Michen
No comments:
Post a Comment