Flora of North America species comparison

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Platystemon californicus

Platystemon
Platystemon californicus

cream cups

cream cups
Habit Plants 0.3-3 dm, pilose or hirsute, sometimes glabrate. Herbs, annual, caulescent, usually distinctly pubescent, from fibrous roots.
Stems

leafy, erect to decumbent, branching distally.
Leaves

10-90 × 1.7-8.1 mm;

blade broadly linear;

margins entire;

apex rounded to long-acute.

mostly opposite or whorled, sessile;

blade broadly linear, unlobed.
Inflorescences

peduncle 3.4-25.8 cm;

bud globose to ovoid-cylindric.

axillary or terminal, 1-flowerd;

bracts absent;

bud nodding.
Flowers

petals white to cream colored, sometimes with yellow tip and/or base, rarely gold overall, sometimes tinged red in age, narrowly ovate to obovate, 6-19 × 3.5-16 mm, apex acute to rounded;

ovary cylindric to oblong-ellipsoid;

stigmas linear, margin revolute.

receptacle slightly expanded beneath calyx;

sepals 3, with overlapping, loosely connivent flaps;

petals 6, occasionally more on robust specimens;

stamens many in several series;

filaments dilated distally;

pistil 6-many-carpellate;

ovary with each carpel forming almost closed locule with 4-24 ovules;

stigmas 1 per carpel.
Capsules

ellipsoid, to 1.6 cm.

erect or sometimes nodding, carpels dissociating, each torulose and breaking transversely into 1-seeded segments, sometimes also releasing free seeds.
Seeds

black, shining, smooth.

usually many, aril absent.
x

= 6.
2n

= 12 (plus occasional supernumerary chromosomes).

Platystemon californicus

Platystemon
Phenology Flowering early–late spring.
Habitat Open, grassy areas with loose or disturbed soil or following burns
Elevation 0-1000(-2000) m (0-3300(-6600) ft)
Distribution
from FNA
AZ; CA; NV; OR; UT; Mexico (Baja California)
[WildflowerSearch map]
from USDA
w United States
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

This highly variable, wind-pollinated taxon has been split into as many as 57 species on the basis of characteristics showing little cohesiveness. Ecotypic variation has produced morphologic extremes ranging from semisucculent, nearly glabrous coastal forms to very robust, moderately pubescent plants of interior grassland to compact, densely pubescent plants of semidesert habitats (G. L. Hannan 1979, 1982). Several varieties are recognized in some currently used floras: Platystemon californicus var. ciliatus Dunkle, from Santa Barbara Island; P. californicus var. nutans M. Brandegee, from coastal San Diego County and Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz islands; and P. californicus var. ornithopus (Greene) Munz, from San Miguel, San Nicholas, and Santa Rosa islands. These geographically restricted morphotypes appear to result from the same sort of ecotypic variation found in many other parts of the range. Rather than naming each ecotype, it seems best to treat Platystemon as a single, highly variable species with many locally adapted, intergrading populations.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Species 1 (1 in the flora).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 3. FNA vol. 3. Author: Gary L. Hannan.
Parent taxa Papaveraceae > Platystemon Papaveraceae
Subordinate taxa
P. californicus
Synonyms P. arizonicus, P. australis, P. californicus var. ciliatus, P. californicus var. crinitus, P. californicus var. horridulus, P. californicus var. nutans, P. californicus var. ornithopus, P. mohavensis
Name authority Bentham: Trans. Hort. Soc. London, ser. 2, 1: 405. 1834 (as californicum) Bentham: Trans. Hort Soc. London, ser. 2, 1: 405. (1834)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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