Wingnuts

One of my favorite plant common names is wingnut cryptantha, Cryptantha pterocarya. Arizona Flora treated them as two varieties separated by the number of winged nutlets - four winged nutlets => var. cycloptera vs three winged and one not winged => var. pterocarya. They have since been treated as species and Jepson has a key - see couplet 29. Without nutlets it appears plant color is a good hint - yellow-green for C. cycloptera, gray-green for C. pterocarya. In my experience the calyx lobes are a good spot to check for color. Further, pedicel length can help, longer in C. cycloptera.

Publicerat 20 februari 2024 18.49 av stevejones stevejones

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Interesting! Do you know of any any difference in the seeds/"nutlets" (e.g. as illustrated here: https://plants.sdsu.edu/cryptantha/)

Inlagt av danielmcnair 4 månader sedan

Not so much there as in the article referenced there; it's the article that among other things named these taxa at species. It's a lot more complex that Kearney and Peebles thought. Unfortunately that doesn't help much here in iNat unless nutlets are included in the observation; the key focuses on nutlets. For our purposes Jepson's key is more helpful.
Now I need to break out the herbarium sheets and take a closer look at the nutlets with Mabry et al.

Inlagt av stevejones 4 månader sedan

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