Al Schneider's Rocky Mountains Plant Descriptions

Miner's Candle
Oreocarya virgata
Borage family (Boraginaceae)

There are over two dozen Cryptantha in Colorado but almost all grow below the elevation levels covered by this app. The is characterized by plants with quite delicate and attractive flowers, typically white and typically in clusters. Plants are quite hairy and thus have a soft and glowing look to them. Careful observation of the is necessary to identify most Cryptantha. William Weber, Colorado plant authority, divides Cryptantha into two , Cryptantha which are without of and with flowers less than 1/5" in diameter and Oreocarya which are biennials or from of with flowers more than 1/5" in diameter. Other botanists do agree with these distinguishing characteristics but they keep all the species in the Cryptantha .

Miner's Candle (Cryptantha virgata) is tall and narrow with prominent leaf-like standing out almost horizontally below the flowers. "Virgata" means "twig-like." Compare this Cryptantha with Butter Candle (C. celosioides).


©2011 Patrick Alexander

Description

plants from a . Stems from 8-24" tall, usually solitary, stout, unbranched, hairy with long, sharp, . Leaves 1-4" long, narrowly , hairy. long, leafy, -like with very long leaf-like surpassing the flower cluster. white. is .

Field Marks

Tall, straight, unbranched plant with numerous leaves and an abundance of very small white flowers subtended by long leaf-like .

© Al Schneider

A spike is an unbranched, indeterminate inflorescence in which the flowers are without stalks.

oblanceolate -- top wider than bottom

A perennial plant lives and blooms for many years.

bristle -- A straight, stiff hair.

corolla -- The name for all the petals of a flower taken together.

An annual plant is a plant that completes its life cycle, from germination to the production of seed, within one year, and then dies.

Bracts are modified leaves associated with a flower.

An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem.

taproot -- The primary decending root of a plant.

a small nut. A nut being a hard, dry fruit containing only one seed that does not open at maturity.

fruit -- any seed-bearing structure in flowering plants. It is formed from the ovary after flowering.

biennial -- a plant which lives for two years, producing a basal rosette of leaves the first year and a full plant, flower, and seed the second year followed by the death of the entire plant at the end of the second year.

basal leaves -- a leaf that grows lowest on the stem of a plant.

genus -- A subdivision of a botanical Family in which all members have a significant number of similar characteristics.

rosette -- usually a dense cluster of leaves at the base of a plant.