Cordylanthus capitatus

Cordylanthus capitatus, the Yakima bird's-beak or clustered bird's-beak, is an uncommon plant of the Western U.S.

Cordylanthus capitatus

Apparently Secure  (NatureServe)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Lamiales
Family: Orobanchaceae
Genus: Cordylanthus
Species:
C. capitatus
Binomial name
Cordylanthus capitatus

Description

Annual with spreading branches, 10–50 cm, glaucous-green or grey-purple, densely glandular- and nonglandular-hairy. Stems paniculately branched; herbage green, pubescent (spreading-viscid and short-glandular-pilose) with long soft white hairs. Leaves of main stem alternate, deeply divided into 3 linear to thread-like segments, 20–40 mm; of the branches entire, few and remote. Inflorescences "leafy" 2—4 flowered small capitate spikes, 15–20 mm, head-like; bracts gland-tipped, of 2 kinds: those subtending the spike 4–7, linear-lanceolate, palmately divided (lobes 3 in lower ½), 10–20 mm; those subtending each flower entire or pinnately divided, 12–18 mm, elliptical, acute, entire, arched outward, purplish. Flower calyx purplish, 10–15 mm (shorter than the inner floral bract), tube 2–4 mm, tip bifid 2–3 mm deep, ca 1/3 of the calyx length; corolla 10–20 mm, erect, straight or nearly so, maroon, puberulent with reflexed hairs; lips subequal in length: galea pale, whitish, with a yellow-tip, finely pubescent and dark purple dorsally: lower lip shorter than upper: throat moderately inflated, 4–6 mm wide; stamens 2: filaments glabrous or nearly so, dilated above base and forming a U-shaped curve near the anther: anther sac 1 (with vestiges of a second), ciliate. Fruit is a capsule, slender, pointed, 8–10 mm long. Seeds 4–6, 2–2.5 mm, rather reniform, shallowly reticulate, rather smooth between nets.[1][2][3][4][5]

Distribution, habitat, and ecology

This plant is endemic to its range, an area stretching from central Washington, to the western edge of Montana, to the Warner Mountains of north-eastern California. It lives in open upland slopes and flats, within lower montane yellow pine forests and Great Basin juniper scrub, in dry, gravelly basaltic soil. It is usually associated with sagebrush, being a hemiparasite of that plant. Its elevational range is from 4,575 to 7,625 ft (2,324 m) above sea level.

Conservation status and threats

California Native Plant Society List 2.2.

NatureServe Global Rank: G4

The threats facing Yaquima bird's-beak are not known at present.

Field identification

Yakima bird's-beak flowers from July to early September. The flowers are purple. It is likely to be found in dry, gravelly soil derived from volcanic rocks, within a few feet of sagebrush.

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References
  1. Ferris, Roxana Stinchfield (1918). "Taxonomy and Distribution of Adenostegia". Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, Vol. 45, No. 10. 45 (10): 403–404. doi:10.2307/2479700. JSTOR 2479700.
  2. Jepson, Willis Linn (1925). Manual of the Flowering Plants of California. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 945.
  3. Abrams, Leroy (1951). Illustrated Flora of the Pacific States, Volume III: Geraniaceae to Scrophulariaceae. Stanford University Press. pp. 858–859.
  4. Cronquist, Arthur; Arthur H. Holmgren; Noel H. Holmgren; James L. Reveal; Patricia K. Holmgren (1984). Intermountain Flora: Plants of the Intermountain West, U.S.A., Vol. Four. Bronx: New York Botanical Gardens. p. 506.
  5. Chuang, T.I.; Lawrence R. Heckard (1993). Hickman, James C. (ed.). The Jepson Manual: Higher Plants of California. University of California Press. pp. 1029.
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