Calycanthus occidentalis

Calycanthus occidentalis, commonly called spice bush or western sweetshrub, [1] is a species of flowering shrub in the family Calycanthaceae that is endemic (limited) to California. It grows along streams and moist canyons in the foothills of the mountains surrounding the Central Valley north of Bakersfield in the east and north of the San Francisco Bay Area in the west.

Calycanthus occidentalis
note the lack of distinctive sepals
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Magnoliids
Order: Laurales
Family: Calycanthaceae
Genus: Calycanthus
Species:
C. occidentalis
Binomial name
Calycanthus occidentalis
Hook. & Arn.

Description

Calycanthus occidentalis is a deciduous shrub that grows to be about 1 to 3 m (3 to 6 ft) high and 1 to 4 m (3 to 12 ft) wide. Its bright green leaves are opposite, and grow to about 15 cm long and 5 to 8 cm wide. They are ovate with acute tips, and entire (smooth) margins. The shrub blooms from April to August. The flower bud is about 4 cm long and 2 cm wide, composed of about 40 tepals. The flowers do not have distinctive sepals and petals, but have swirls of petal-like structures called tepals. The dark red to burgundy colored tepals open up to form a flower that is about 8 cm across. The tepals enclose about 20 stamens and the flowers are pollinated by beetles of the Nitidulidae family. The fruit is a dry capsule about 6 cm long, containing many seeds.

gollark: Your generation has grown up with these "mod-loader" thingummies which do it for you! Get off my lawn!
gollark: And if some mods edited the same file, we just had to live with it breaking horribly!
gollark: In MY day we unzipped the jar file and copied in mods!
gollark: What have you done so far?
gollark: <@330838793043312652> To *really* shorten it use a minifier.

References
  1. "Calycanthus occidentalis". Natural Resources Conservation Service PLANTS Database. USDA. Retrieved 16 December 2019.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.