Polemoniaceae (po-le-moh-nee-AY-see-ee)
Iconic Features
- Often small annuals
- Tubular flowers with flat faces
- Usually with 3-lobed stigmas
Description (Jepson)
- Eudicotyledons (eudicots) – a major lineage of flowering plants including most plants traditionally described as dicots and generally characterized by
- 2 seed leaves (dicotyledon)
- Netted (reticulate) leaf venation
- Flower parts in fours and fives
- Pollen grains with 3 pores (tricolpate)
- Vascular bundles in stem arranged in a ring
- Taproot system
- Annual or perennial herbs, vines, and small shrubs
- Most California phloxes are small annuals
- Leaves
- Simple (not divided into leaflets) or compound (divided into leaflets)
- Alternate (1 leaf at each junction with stem) or opposite (2 leaves at each junction with stem)
- Usually narrow
- Flowers
- Inflorescence (flower arrangement) in many forms
- Bisexual, radially or bilaterally symmetric tube-shaped flowers with flat, dish-like faces (salverform)
- Flower parts generally in fives
- 5 partially-fused sepals (usually green, outer flower parts), often connected by a translucent membrane
- 5 petals, usually fused, twisted in bud
- 5 stamens (male flower parts)
- Single pistil (female flower part) with a 3-lobed stigma (pollen-receiving structure)
- Ovary superior (above the attachment of other flower parts)
- Fruit a generally 3-chambered capsule (a dry, multi-chambered fruit that splits open at maturity)
Notes
- Approximately 314 species in the Northern Hemisphere and South America
- Greatest diversity of species in western North America, particularly California
- Includes skunkweeds, leptosiphons, phloxes, and gilias
- Many cultivated as ornamentals
- All 78 wild-growing species documented by CalFlora in the Bay Area are native
- Seeds in the genus Collomia swell and are gelatinous when wet
- Scientific name from the included genus Polemonium, possibly from the Greek polemonion referring to plants associated with the Greek herbalist Polemon of Cappadocia
- Common name from the Greek phlox, “flame,” an old name for the genus Lychnis (campions or catchflies) in the Pink family (Caryophyllaceae)
- Represented by 12 species at Edgewood
General References
Calflora Database. 2014. Berkeley, California.
Calscape. 2018. California Native Plant Society.
Charters, M.L. 2015. California Plant Names: Latin and Greek Meanings and Derivations.
Charters, M.L. 2017. Southern California Wildflowers: Guide to the Pronunciation of Specific, Generic and Family Names.
Corelli, T. 2004. Flowering Plants of Edgewood Natural Preserve (2nd. ed.). Monocot Press, Half Moon Bay, California.
Elpel, T.J. 2013. Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification. HOPS Press, Pony, Montana.
Flora of North America. efloras.org.
Harris, J.G., and M.W. Harris. 2013. Plant Identification Terminology: An Illustrated Glossary. Spring Lake Publishing, Spring Lake, Utah.
Keator, G. 2009. California Plant Families. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California.
Native American Ethnobotany DB.
Regents of the University of California. Jepson eFlora. Jepson Herbarium. University of California, Berkeley.
Browse Some Edgewood Plants in this Family
