Arbonius_
Eriodictyon_crassifolium_denudatum?
Photogarphed on July 10, 2010 on Pine Mountain, Ventura Co., California
Image shows a portion of an Eriodictyon leaf, with a female of the leaf beetle species Trirhabda eriodictyonis.
My best stab at a "fine-level" ID for the plant here is Eriodictyon crassifolium var. denudatum Abrams 1915...which was put into synonymy with E. crassifolium var. nigrescens in the 1993 Jepson Manual.
The clearly embossed primary veins (pinnately diverging off mid-vein) on the upper leaf surface here...and the similarly evident relief of the more finely reticulate secondary venation...are more akin to the leaf surface gestalt of E. crassifolium than to E. trichocalyx.
And though it appears somewhat shiny, the "glutinosity" of the leaf here does not have the same "thick-waxy" quality of typical T. trichocalyx in the surrounding area.
Additionally, although the general outline of the leaf is not entirely visible here...extrapolating from what can be seen...it looks like the leaf shape is intermediate between the typically oblong-lanceolate outline of E. trichocalyx and the (more narrow end of the spectrum for the) ovate-lanceolate leaf outline of E. crassifolium var. nigrescens. (Note that leaf shape nuances can be subtle, and the usage of terms like "oblong-ovate" and "ovate-lanceolate" in one group of plants may refer to a gestalt that is relatively more or less pronounced than for another, depending on the norms for leaf shapes in that group.)
Pine Mountain is in the area of Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties where variation and intergrades among E. crassifolium, californicum and trichocalyx can make species determination difficult...see the discussion near the bottom of pg. 129 of the paper Abrams & Smiley (1915).
Eriodictyon_crassifolium_denudatum?
Photogarphed on July 10, 2010 on Pine Mountain, Ventura Co., California
Image shows a portion of an Eriodictyon leaf, with a female of the leaf beetle species Trirhabda eriodictyonis.
My best stab at a "fine-level" ID for the plant here is Eriodictyon crassifolium var. denudatum Abrams 1915...which was put into synonymy with E. crassifolium var. nigrescens in the 1993 Jepson Manual.
The clearly embossed primary veins (pinnately diverging off mid-vein) on the upper leaf surface here...and the similarly evident relief of the more finely reticulate secondary venation...are more akin to the leaf surface gestalt of E. crassifolium than to E. trichocalyx.
And though it appears somewhat shiny, the "glutinosity" of the leaf here does not have the same "thick-waxy" quality of typical T. trichocalyx in the surrounding area.
Additionally, although the general outline of the leaf is not entirely visible here...extrapolating from what can be seen...it looks like the leaf shape is intermediate between the typically oblong-lanceolate outline of E. trichocalyx and the (more narrow end of the spectrum for the) ovate-lanceolate leaf outline of E. crassifolium var. nigrescens. (Note that leaf shape nuances can be subtle, and the usage of terms like "oblong-ovate" and "ovate-lanceolate" in one group of plants may refer to a gestalt that is relatively more or less pronounced than for another, depending on the norms for leaf shapes in that group.)
Pine Mountain is in the area of Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties where variation and intergrades among E. crassifolium, californicum and trichocalyx can make species determination difficult...see the discussion near the bottom of pg. 129 of the paper Abrams & Smiley (1915).