Al Schneider's Rocky Mountains Plant Descriptions

Yellow Owl-clover
Orthocarpus luteus
Broomrape/Paintbrush family (Orobanchaceae)

Growing across most of the Western U.S. to the upper Midwest, Owl Clover (Orthocarpus luteus) is the most wide-ranging Orthocarpus. It grows in sagebrush and open Aspen, Gambel Oak, and Ponderosa woodlands. Yellow Owlclover and Purple Owlclover often grow within a few feet of each other. Both plants are slender, with narrow, leaves and a of strangely club-shaped flowers.

Thomas Nuttall collected the first specimen of this plant "in humid situations on the plains of the Missouri, near Fort Mandan" in 1812 and named it in his 1818 " of North America Plants". Nuttall called the "Orthocarpus" because of its straight ("ortho") ("carpus"). "Luteus" is Latin for "yellow."


©2004 Matt Lavin

Description

caulescent plants with stems to 15" tall, erect, usually simple or branching near the top, somewhat hairy; often in large colonies. Leaves from 1/3 to 1 1/2" long, to , usually or rarely 3-cleft. many-flowered, from 1/2 to 4" long. about 1/2" long, 3 to 5 cleft, leaf-like. to 1/3" long. about 3/5" long, golden-yellow. a .

Field Marks

Slender plant with short leaves and small yellow flowers.

© Al Schneider

An entire leaf has smooth edges. Not toothed or lobed.

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

capsule -- a type of simple, dry fruit produced by many species of flowering plants. In most cases the capsule splits apart to release seeds.

meadow -- Large grass and wildflower filled area with few, if any, trees.

A herb is a plant whose stems die back to the ground in the winter.

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.

terminal -- Located at the end (the tip or the apex).

calyx -- the sepals of a flower, typically forming a whorl that encloses the petals and forms a protective layer around a flower in bud.

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

linear-lanceolate -- Elongate and exceedingly narrow with the sides more or less straight but gradually becomming broader near the base.

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

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

linear -- Long and very narrow like a blade of grass.