Winecup Clarkia, Purple Clarkia
Clarkia purpurea ssp. quadrivulnera
NATIVE
Description (Jepson, PlantID.net)
- Eudicotyledon
- Eudicots are a major lineage of flowering plants; see family for general characteristics
- Evening Primrose Family (Onagraceae)
- Annual herb
- Upright, with green to reddish stems
- Leaves
- Narrow, linear to lanceolate
- Attached directly to the stem (sessile) or with a very short (≤ 0.07 in.) leaf stalk (petiole)
- Flowers
- Inflorescence (flower arrangement) from the leaf axils
- Apparent flower stalk is a long floral tube (hypanthium)
- Flower parts in fours
- 4 pink, lavender, purple, or wine-red petals in a cup shape
- Often (and usually at Edgewood) with a darker wedge-shape at tip and a darker ring at base
- 4 sepals (usually green, outer flower parts), generally bent back (reflexed)
- 8 stamens (male flower parts), usually with white to pale-lavender pollen
- 4 pink, lavender, purple, or wine-red petals in a cup shape
- Ovary inferior (below the attachment of other flower parts)
- Inflorescence (flower arrangement) from the leaf axils
- Fruit is an elongated, 8-ribbed capsule (a dry, multi-chambered fruit that splits open at maturity)
- Height to 12 in.
Distribution
- Native to California
- Grows in open grasslands or shrubby places
- See Calflora for statewide observations of this plant
- Outside California, grows in western North America from British Columbia south through Arizona and Baja California, Mexico
- Grows at elevations to 4,920 ft.
Uses (San Mateo County Parks prohibits removal of any natural material)
- Wildlife
- Insects are the primary pollinators, but most species of Clarkia are capable of self-fertilization
- Native people
- Seeds ground for pinole
- Pinole is a general term for various flours made from the ground, toasted seeds of wildflowers and grasses, eaten dry or moistened and shaped into balls or cakes (Anderson 2005)
- “Pinole” is a Hispanic version of an Aztec word
- Decoction of leaves used as a wash for sore eyes
- Fields were burned to stimulate the growth of clarkias and other seed-bearing plants (Anderson 2005)
- Seeds ground for pinole
Name Derivation
- Clarkia (KLAR-kee-a) – named for William Clark (1770-1838) who, along with Captain Meriwether Lewis, led the first transcontinental expedition (1804-1806) at the request of President Thomas Jefferson
- purpurea (per-PER-ee-a) – “purple,” referring to the color of the flower
- quadrivulnera (kwad-ri-VUL-ner-a) – from the Latin quadri, “four”, and vulnera, “wounds,” referring to the dark spot on each of the four petals that make them appear wounded
Notes
- Flowers close at night or when it’s cloudy
- This process is an example of photonasty, a nastic response to light
- Nastic responses occur when a plant part, such as a flower or leaf, moves in response to a stimulus (Mauseth 2012), e.g., humidity (hydronasty), light (photonasty), temperature (thermonasty), or touch (thigmonasty)
- Nastic responses are caused by changes in turgor pressure
- They are independent of the direction of the stimulus and usually are reversible and repeatable
- Nastic responses differ from tropic responses
- Tropic responses are directional growth movements–a plant grows toward or away from a stimulus, e.g., light (phototropism), gravity (gravitropism) or touch (thigmotropism)
- All plants have tropic responses, but only some plants have nastic responses
- Flowers can self-pollinate (Pollack 2023)
- Pollen has cobweb-like (viscin) threads
- Bees in general have specialized electrostatic hairs called scopa (plural, scopae) that store pollen while foraging (Kerstiens 2019)
- Many bees who visit plants in the Evening Primrose family have evolved modified hairs to handle the sticky pollen characteristic of this family (Portman 2017)
- Most Clarkia species are strongly protandrous (Raven 1979)
- Stamens (male flower parts) develop before the pistil (female flower part)
- The sequential maturation of pistil and stamens is called dichogamy (from the Greek for “divided marriage”)
- Protogyny describes a pistil maturing before stamens (from the Greek for “female first”)
- Protandry describes stamens maturing before the pistil (from the Greek for “male first”)
- Once believed to promote cross-pollination by preventing self-fertilization, dichogamy is now understood to more generally increase the efficiency of sexual functions by preventing mechanical interference (Barrett 2002)
- Pistil does not interfere with pollen export from the stamens
- Stamens do not impede contact of pollinator with the stigma (pollen-receiving structure of the female flower)
- Stigma is not clogged with the plant’s own pollen
- California has over 70 species and subspecies of plants in the genus Clarkia, named after William Clark, with 20 species found in the greater San Francisco Bay area (Santa Clara County Parks 2020)
- Some organizations, i.e. San Bruno Mountain Watch’s Mission Blue Nursery and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy Nurseries, have renamed the genus Yorkia, to honor York, an enslaved Black member of the expedition (Kilat 2023)
- Edgewood’s four-spot Clarkia is classified as a subspecies
- Subspecies indicates a geographically-separated population with distinct morphological characteristics; when not isolated, interbreeding is possible
- Variety indicates a population with small morphological variations, e.g. color, seen throughout the geographic range of the species; interbreeding is possible
- In practice, botanists have not consistently applied these ranks
ID Tips
- May be confused with one other Clarkia species commonly found at Edgewood, ruby chalice clarkia (C. rubicunda)
| Four-spot Clarkia | Ruby Chalice Clarkia | |
| Petals | pink … dark spots at tip and base | darker pink to magenta … often with dark ring at base |
| Stigma¹ | does not extend beyond anthers² | extends beyond anthers² |
| Sepals³ | fused in pairs (or come free) | fused in fours |
²Anther: pollen-producing part of the stamen/male structure
³Sepals: usually green, outer flower parts
At Edgewood
- Found in grasslands
- See iNaturalist for observations of this plant
- Flowers April – July
Specific References
Anderson, M.K. 2005. Tending the Wild. University of California, Berkeley. Pp. 138, 184, 264.
Barrett, S. 2002. Sexual interference of the floral kind. Heredity 88: 154–159.
Kalit, B. 2023. Five tips for decolonizing language. Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.
Kerstiens, H. 2019, Apr. 3. Charged electrostatic hairs collect pollen granules. Ask Nature. Biomimicry Institute.
Mauseth, J. 2012. Botany: An Introduction to Plant Biology (5th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning. Burlington, Massachusetts.
Mitchell, M. 2017. Onagraceae: Evening-primrose family — Clarkia. Monterey County Wildflowers, Trees, and Ferns – A Photographic Guide.
Peale, C.W. 1807. William Clark [Illustration, adapted]. Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail. United States National Park Service. Public Domain.
Pollack, A.S. 2023, May 17. These fabulous flowers are spring’s final encore. Bay Nature.
Portman, Z. 2017, Jul. 6. The stickiness of Onagraceae pollen. The Science of Species: Understanding and Identifying the Bees of North America.
Prigge, B.A., and A.C. Gibson. 2013. Clarkia purpurea ssp. quadrivulnera. A Naturalist’s Flora of the Santa Monica Mountains and Simi Hills, California. Web version, hosted at Wildflowers of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. United States Department of Interior, National Park Service.
Raven, P.H. 1979. A survey of reproductive biology in Onagraceae. New Zealand Journal of Botany 17: 575-593. Taylor & Francis.
Santa Clara County Parks. 2020. Plants of limited distribution in California. Santa Clara County, California.
General References
Calflora Database. 2014. Berkeley, California.
Calscape. 2018. California Native Plant Society.
Charters, M.L. 2015. Latin and Greek Plant Names: Meaning 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.