Learning plant names worth the struggle

VIC LEIPZIG AND LOU MURRAY

Plants, unlike birds, hold still. We can get really close to the

immobile things for as long as we like at Bolsa Chica or Shipley

Nature Center, thumbing through 3-inch-thick botanical taxonomy

books. Yet we often aren’t able to figure out what the heck the

blasted plants are called. Field botany has to be the most difficult

of all the natural sciences.

That’s why Vic and I attended a California native plant

identification workshop at Crystal Cove State Park in Newport Beach

last week. It was sponsored by the Crystal Cove Interpretive Assn.

and taught by noted local botanist Fred Roberts. We hoped to get some

additional training in plant identification.

The reason this field is so difficult is the terminology. Taxonomy

books might as well be written in Greek. They depend on elaborate

keys and the process of elimination to figure out what the plant is

called. First, we have to determine if a plant is in the sunflower,

oak or another family before we can find the genus, much less the

species name.

You’re probably asking yourself, “What idiot can’t tell the

difference between an oak and a sunflower?”

You think it’s easy? Well let’s just assume that you can tell the

difference between an oak and a sunflower and you’re certain that you

have an oak in front of you. Let’s further assume that you have a

copy of Phillip Munz’s “A Flora of Southern California” with you, and

that you didn’t get a hernia lugging the 1,086-page text into the

woods. You turn to the section on oaks.

You’re now faced with the task of keying out the tree, using a

simple “yes or no” system. If the answer to the first question is

yes, it gives you the name of the plant. If the answer is no, you go

to the next set of questions. The series of questions will enable you

to identify the mystery tree out of the 11 oak species native to

Southern California.

The first question asks if the plant is deciduous. We know that

deciduous means that the tree sheds its leaves in the fall. If the

answer is yes, then it’s a black oak, the only deciduous oak in

Southern California. Let’s say that this oak doesn’t shed its leaves,

but is evergreen. There are still 10 alternatives. On to the next

question.

Holy granola, Batman, now the book expects us to know whether the

acorns mature in the first or second autumn. Who can tell? Worse, it

asks if the leaves are plane and glabrous beneath, or convex and

hairy beneath, especially in the axils. We didn’t even know trees had

wheels, much less axils (sic). The botanists among our readers will

get that one.

It gets worse. We’re next asked if the stigmas are subsessile, if

the involucral cups have tuberculate scales, or if the leaf blades

are stellate-pubescent. Ack!

At this point we throw the book at the tree, deciding that it

doesn’t matter what it’s called. It’s just an oak. We no longer care

whether it’s a scrub oak, coast live oak, or rare Engelmann oak.

It’s no wonder that I can’t remember what most of those terms

mean. The last time I had field botany was nearly 40 years ago when I

was pregnant with my son, Scott. My belly was bigger than the

Battlestar Galactica. My field botany professor was certain that I

was going to deliver on one of his field trips, so he made me ride

with his wife. They needn’t have worried. Scott didn’t make his

arrival until six weeks after the final exam. After all these years,

I no longer remember the difference between a helicoid cyme and a

scorpoid cyme, or even what a cyme is.

The Munz book has a glossary in the back, but without pictures, it

isn’t all that helpful. “The Jepson Manual of Higher Plants of

California” has some line drawings in the glossary that clearly

explain such important concepts as whether the epipetalous stamens

are “included” or “exserted.” Oh, please. This is why plant

identification is so difficult. And did we mention that you need a

microscope to even see some of these plant parts?

According to Roberts, there are 806 California-native plant

species in Orange County, plus 387 nonnative plants as of 1998.

That’s up from 351 nonnative plant species in 1989. The number of

native plant species in Orange County is staying the same, which is

good, but the number of nonnative species is increasing, which is

bad. This indicates that nonnative species are overgrowing the

natural landscape. You can see it happening at our coastal wetlands,

Central Park, Bartlett Park or any place where natives remain. The

number of native plants decreases for every nonnative plant that

enters the ecosystem.

We’re learning our local plant species one by one. Sometimes we

have an expert identify a plant for us, sometimes we use picture

guides, and sometimes by sheer dumb luck we’re able to key out a new

species. Scott, who is capable of enjoying a plant without naming it,

has asked if it adds to our enjoyment of nature to know the names of

living things. The answer is yes. To name it is to know it, and to

know it is to love it.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].