Dandelions - mistakes in the field

Dandelions are ubiquitous plants, common in fields and gardens, and also both beloved and hated.  We love their fluffy fruiting heads with their wind-blown small parachute seeds.  It is probably one of the most well-known plants in society (except for some common ones that we grow on purpose).

However, not only dandelions have these types of fruits, and some of the popular photos of dandelions are actually other species. The most common mix-up is with Tragopogon species, goat beards. Both are members of the sunflower family, the Asteraceae.  How do you tell them apart?

Dandelion (Taraxacum)
from Lindman's flora, public domain.

The common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) has:

• yellow flowers (each head have many tiny, tiny flowers)
• leaves that are lobed with large teeth
• leaves in a rosette near the ground, no leaves on the flower stalk
• fruiting heads about 3-5 cm in diameter (up to 2 inches)
• the green bracts under the flowering  head are relatively short, and they barely just reach the full radius of the fruiting head.
• there are more seeds in each head

Note the difference in the leaves and bracts to the leaves of goat's beard.

In the sunflower family, each seed is also a fruit.  So a sunflower seed is a little 1-seeded nut.



Goatbeards (Tragopogon sp. ) have:

Goatsbeard (Tragopogon),
from Thomé (1885), public domain

• yellow or purple flowers (each head have many tiny, tiny flowers)
• leaves that do not have lobes, and are very long and narrow ending in a long sharp point
• leaves are present on the flower stalk
• fruiting heads usually over 5 cm (over 2 inches)
• the green bracts under the flowering  head are long, reaching beyond the full radius of the expanded fruiting head
• you can blow these seeds away too
• Other names for these plants are salsify and goat's beard. 

Below are some examples of stock photos that are sold as dandelion photos but actually are other species. Most photos marked as dandelions are correct, but a few are not. If you spend $40 and upwards on stock photos, I think you should assume you get the right species, don't you?

istockphoto for sale by user sunnybeach, marked as dandelion but showing goatsbeard.
Note the two long bracts hanging down from the fruiting head near the stem.
(Screenshot by BotanicalAccuracy.com, istockphoto image # 171660950.)

Another stockphoto, this time from Getty images, also showing goatsbeard (note long narrow and non-dented leaves). (Screenshot by BotanicalAccuracy.com, gettyimages photo # 128072731)

More examples on this Pinterest board: 'Dandelions' that are not real dandelions.

Are there cattails among the nymphs in the waterlilies?

Sometimes you run into botanical mistakes that just makes no sense.  Mistakes that are so strange, that you wonder not just want the author was thinking, but really, HOW did they get this wrong...  A reader of this blog (RO) sent me this example of such a preposterous mistake:

On Virginia Tech's online Weed Identification Guide, when you search for cattails, you find this:

Screenshot from Virginia Tech Weed Identification guide by BotanicalAccuracy.com.

A nice page with a species description, but... the genus is wrong.  Cattail belongs to Typha (in the family Typhaceae, they have their own little family).  Here is a typical cattail in fruit:

A pair of cattail 'cigars' which contain the developing fruits.
Photo by Amadej Trnkoczy on Flickr, Creative Commons. 

Instead of Typha, the listed genus name is Nympha, which not only is a non-existent genus name, but probably was meant to be Nymphaea, the waterlily genus.  Sure, water lilies often grow very close to cattails in the edges of lakes or ditches, but they are completely different plants. Compare here:

A great pair of Nymphaea, water lilies. Photo by Vilseskogen on Flickr, Creative Commons.

Nymphaea is of course named after the Greek nymphs, while Typha also comes from a greek word 'typhos', which is the ancient name for this plant.  Apparently cattails have long been associated with mythological creatures such as serpents and dragons.

The same information and mistake is showing up in University of Missouri's Weed ID iphone app, and they must have some kind of collaboration with the originators of Virginia Tech's Weed data.


My main issue here is that universities that put out online (or printed) botanical tools for the general public need to get at least the basic science correct.  People use these tools, which is great, but they will (and should) assume that the information is accurate, especially if if it is provided by a research and teaching university.

(Thanks to RO for sending me the link to the botanically inaccurate page.)

The wrong mutants are singing the blues

An article published online today (Jan 6, 2014) in The New York Times ('Mutant Petunias Sing the Blues') about some exciting new research on the evolution of blue color of some garden petunias is illustrated with this nice photo:

This is not a blue petunia, it is a morning glory.
Screen shot from NY Times website, Jan 6, 2014, by BotanicalAccuracy.com

Now, the only problem is that this is not a petunia. Petunias are members of the genus Petunia (simple!) in the Solanaceae, the potato family. This is unfortunately a photo of a morning glory, in the genus Ipomoea in the family Convolvulaceae, related to sweet potatoes. There are several kinds of morning glories, all in the same family, and both morning glories and petunias come in a wide array of flower color patterns.

The very interesting research  article has the right plant in its illustrations.

Illustration showing the mutation that causes blue petunias.
Image (c) Faraco et al. (2014) [Cell reports 10.1016/j.celrep.2013.12.009]

How could this happen in a  news article? Well, I guess someone at The New York Times did a stock photo search for petunia and found a nice photo, used it, and didn't realized it was mislabeled. Stock photo archives are full of mislabeled plants. So you pay for a photo, and then it turns out to show the wrong plant - not really what you paid for. Here is the source at iStock by Getty images:

The source of the wrong petunia image.
Screen shot from iStock by Getty Images website, Jan 6, 2014, by BotanicalAccuracy.com

Now, how do you tell a petunia from a morning glory? There are a couple of differences. Morning glories usually have heart-shaped leaves (like the ones on the photo above). Petunias have smaller, hairy oval-shaped leaves. Morning glories are climbers that twist their stem around something to climb higher and higher. Petunias grow like little bushy herbs, no climbing and twisting in them. The colorful petals are fused in both species into a giant flaring trumpet (the corolla) and can look similar, but the edge of the corolla is mostly even in morning glories, but uneven and notched in petunias.

Here is a petunia:

Petunia flower.
Public domain photo by Zirguezi.

Here is a morning glory:

Blue morning glory flower.
(cc) Vilseskogen on Flickr.

[Thanks to BA for notifying me about this mistake. The New York Times have been notified.]

UPDATE 1: It seems that the wrong photo was first used by the renowned science magazine Science [!!!] in their highlight of this research.  See their article titled "ScienceShot: Broken Pump turns petunias blue", dated Jan 2, 2014. So The New York Times probably just reused the photo provide by Science. Here is the screenshot:

The first use of the wrong petunia image, in Science.
Screenshot from Science Magazine, on Jan 5, 2014, by BotanicalAccuracy.com

UPDATE 2: International Science Times picked a new photo for their article about this research, and again, a morning glory is on the photo, not a petunia. Screenshot below:

Another morning glory presented as a petunia.
Screenshot from International Business Times website, Jan 7, 2014, by BotanicalAccuracy.com.

UPDATE 3: Science fixed the photo error within a few hours of being notified, and now display petunias with their article.  Excellent! Here is the new photo, provided by the authors of the research study, Francesca Quattrocchio and Ronald Koes. 

A new photo with abundant and correct petunias on the corrected Science web page.
Screenshot from Science magazine website, Jan 9, 2014, by BotanicalAccuracy.com. 

UPDATE 4: Some other media organizations and companies got it right from the beginning.  Kudos to International Business Times, NBC News, Discover Magazine, Headlines and Global News.

UPDATE 5: New York Times removed the photo for their article and provided a correction on Jan 10, 2014. Thank you!

What Christmas tree is that? A guide to common species

Christmas trees come in many shapes, colors, and species these days.  In the old days you went out into the forest and cut a little (usually rather scraggly-looking) tree of some native tree in your local forests.

Postage stamp from Åland (between Sweden and Finland) showing people
(with saw in hand) bringing home the Christmas tree.
(c) Posten Åland, fair use (link)

For example, in Northern Europe you have only one local species of pine (Scots Pine, Pinus sylvestris), and only one spruce species (Norway Spruce, Picea abies), so a wildcut tree would be one of those species. Unless you brought in a juniper of course (Juniperus communis). In North America there are more local conifers to choose from, but still mostly only a handful.  But these days things are not so simple.

Nowadays, the Christmas tree plantations grow a wide variety of conifer species that might not be local to your area. If you get a tree from a supplier, then the tree might come from far away.  So, finding out what tree you have standing in your living room might not be that simple.

The National Christmas Tree Association has nice photos and descriptions of the most common species. Brooklyn Botanic Garden also has a great clickable key to Christmas tree species with images and descriptions of 15 common species. (Update: Max Payne also has a nice page with descriptions of common Christmas tree species, including several Cupressaceae species.)

First, most Christmas trees are either FIRS (Abies), SPRUCES (Picea), DOUGLAS FIR (Pseudotsuga). or PINES (Pinus). All of these are conifers and have leaves called needles, and cones (except, you rarely see cones on young trees used for Christmas). These plants are quite easy to tell apart and they all belong to the pine family, Pinaceae. See key below.

US Postal stamps showing balsam fir, blue spruce, ponderosa pine and eastern red cedar.
(c) USPS, fair use (link)

Identification key to common Christmas tree genera

1a. Are the needles clustered 2-5 together? Yes - it is a pine (Pinus).
1b. Are needles single? Yes - it is a fir, douglas fir, or spruce. Go to 2.  

2a. Are the needles square in cross-section and green underneath? Yes - it is a spruce (Picea).
2b. Are the needles flat in cross-section and have two white bands underneath? Yes - it is a fir or douglas fir. Go to 3.

3a. The buds at the end of each branch have a sharp tip and are elongated. Yes - it is a douglas fir (Pseudotsuga).
3b. The buds at the end of each branch are blunt at the apex and round. Yes - it is a fir (Abies).

White pine.
Public domain image by Hardyplants, Wikipedia.

PINES (needles grouped in 2-5's)
Needles 5 together: 

• White pine (Pinus strobus) - green to bluish green, needles 5 together, 5-12 (2-4") cm long

Needles 2 together:

• Scots pine [older name: Scotch pine] (Pinus sylvestris) - green, sometimes silvery, needles 2 together, 4-7 cm (2-3") long
• Virginia pine (Pinus virginiana) - green to yellowish green, needles 2 together, 4-7 cm (2-3") long

Norway spruce branch.
(cc) Wikipedi, Wikipedia.

SPRUCES (needles single, square in cross-section, no white bands below each needle; each needle attached to the branch on a little outgrowth; needles attached spirally around branch)

Bluish or greyish tree

• Colorado blue spruce (Picea pungens) - blue green, needles 2-3.5 cm (1-1 1/4") long, with sharp tip
• White spruce (Picea glauca) - bluish to bluish green or gray, needles 1-2 cm (3/8-3/4") long, with blunt tip

Green tree

• Norway spruce (Picea abies) - dark green, needles 1-2.5 cm (1/2-1") long (drooping branches)

Douglas fir branch with cones. The cones are unique,
look at those bracts hanging out betweenthe scales, nothing else looks like that.
(cc) Walter Siegmund, Wikipedia.

DOUGLAS-FIR (needles single, white bands below each needle)

• Douglas-Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) - green to blue green, needles soft, 2-4 cm (3/4-1 1/4") long
  

Needles of White Fir showing white lines underneath.
(cc) Walter Siegmund, Wikipedia.

FIRS (needles single, flattened; white bands below each needle; each needles attached directly to the branch; needles attached in two rows along branch)

Needles with two white lines above

• Concolor Fir [White Fir] (Abies concolor) - green to bluish green, needles 2-5 cm (1 1/4-2") long (needles with sharp apices)
•  Caucasian Fir ["Nordmann"] (Abies nordmanniana) -  dark green, needles 1.8–3.5 cm (2/3-1 1/2")

Needles green or silvery above, without lines

• Balsam Fir (Abies balsamea) - dark green, needles 1-4 cm (3/8-1 1/2") long (needles with blunt, notched apex)
• Fraser Fir (Abies fraseri) - silvery to dark blue green, needles 1-2 cm (1/2-1") long (twigs with red hairs)
• Grand Fir (Abies grandis) - green, needles 2-5 (1/2-2") cm long (twigs with grey hairs, needles with blunt, notched apex)
• Noble Fir (Abies procera) - silvery, needles 2-4 cm (1-1 1/2) inches long (needles turn upwards along branches)

(Not included in this blog post are cedars, junipers, and yew, since they are less common as Christmas trees.)
Post updated 28 January 2014 with new information provided by MF.

Canada's government: Wrong maple on the money

Canada's new $20 bill, 2012. Copyright: CBC.

As reported by CBC Canada a little while ago, botanists in Canada have shown that the newly designed $20 Canadian bill, shows a leaf of the Norway maple (Acer platanoides), not the sugar maple (Acer saccharum). The white-silvery leaf on the bill above on the right side is the wrong species.
   Maple is the national tree of Canada, which has ten native species.  The sugar maple is probably the most commonly known due to the production of maple syrup from sap collected in the spring and its fantastic red to yellow fall color.  Norway maple, however, is a European species often planted in Canada and USA and that is now considered invasive in forests of North America.
   This mistake is like having a mallard duck instead of a turkey as your Thanksgiving decoration or main dish.  Or buying a plum instead of a peach because you don't know the difference (both of those are in the same genus, just like the two maples).
    Click on the link to CBC above to read more.  The Canadian government's excuse is not that great - and it would have been easy to ask a botanist and avoiding this mistake from the beginning. Even if botanists don't grow on trees, they are quite abundant.

This post was updated on 28 January 2014 with some new information regarding Canada's national tree. Thanks MF for the additional information!