GOERT: Garry Oak Ecosystems Recovery Team

Perennial from tuberous, clustered roots and usually less than 50 cm high. The stem is single and very slender usually with very fine hairs. The leaves are stalked and are mostly on the stems with the longest stalks on the few basal leaves and becoming shorter as they grow farther up the stem. The main leaf blades are two or three times palmately divided into narrowly oblong to wedge-shaped segments. Flowers are violet with the uppermost of the five petals being modified into a pronounced hollow spur. The petals are shallowly notched, ruffled, veined and wavy-edged. The upper two petals are often white. The lower flower-pedicles are usually much longer than the flowers. The flowers occur in 3-20 open, loose simple to branched terminal clusters. Blooms from May on the coast to June and July in the higher meadows. Photo by Moralea Milne.

A hairless or short-hairy perennial from a long, fairly slender taproot with leafy stems. It reaches 10-60 cm in height. Leaves: Some of the leaves are basal, but most are on the stem. They are soft, lacy and many times dissected into small, very narrow segments (fern-like). The leaf stalks are abruptly inflated and sheathing at the base. Flowers: The flowers are bright yellow, small with several to many in up to 15 compact heads aggregated in a compound umbel. There are no involucral bracts at the base of the compound umbel, but each umbellet has well-developed, egg-shaped, toothed bracts. It flowers from early in the year to midsummer. Fruit: The fruits are oblong to elliptic, 5-11 mm long, and are somewhat granular-roughened when young and hairless at maturity. They are flattened, broadly winged and with prominent ribs. Photo by Moralea Milne.

Showy, tufted perennial to 40 cm tall; stems usually flattened and wing-margined. Leaves mostly basal, long (to 20cm).and very narrow (< 2 mm broad). Flowers blue to purplish-blue often with a yellow “eye”, small (about 2 cm across) and in a terminal cluster of one to five flowers above a pair of sheathing, leaf-like bracts. Fruits egg-shaped capsules to 6 mm long, with black seeds (Pojar and MacKinnon, 1994). Photo by Jen Pukkonen.

Perennial herb from slender, fibrous roots and many rice-like bulblets (at flowering time); stems erect, solitary, simple, smooth to glandular short-hairy, 10-30 cm tall. Leaves: Basal leaves, egg-shaped to triangular, usually smooth sometimes glandular-hairy, 3-14 cm long, the blades less than 2-3 times as long as wide, entire to shallowly wavy-margined or remotely toothed, narrowing abruptly to winged stalks 1/4 as long to nearly as long as the blades; stem leaves lacking. Flowers: Inflorescence at terminal, involucrate umbel of 2-15 stalked flowers, the stalks smooth to glandular-short-hairy, floral parts in fours or fives (on the same plant), corollas deeply lobed, the lobes deep magenta to lighter in colour, grading to yellow at the bases and on the tubes, 15-25 mm long, bases of the tubes deep purple-red; calyces lobed, the lobes lanceolate, 6-8 mm long, usually sparsely glandular-short hairy, finely purple-flecked; filaments united to form tubes, 2-4 mm long, deep purple-red, usually cross-wrinkled, sometimes nearly smooth; anthers 4-6 mm long, deep red to purple; connective tissue more deeply coloured, usually cross-wrinkled; stigmas not noticeably enlarged, less than twice as wide as the styles; corollas and stamens deciduous as capsules mature. Fruits: Fruit capsules, cylindrical, 7-12 mm long, the tips coming off like lids (from Douglas et al., 1999). Photo by Dave Polster.

Annual, brown-hairy herb, 10-45 cm tall, erect or nearly so. Leaves palmately compound; 5-8 leaflets, to 4 cm long, hairy above (not below). Flowers blue and white, pea-like, small (to 7 mm long); in short clusters. Fruits are slightly hairy pods to 3 cm long. Photo by Dave Polster.

Slender erect annuals with nearly-simple stems growing from a strong taproot. Flowers very small white or purplish in racemes. Stems 2-4 mm in diameter, tall, very slender, little branched, somewhat pubescent. Basal leaves 1-3.5 cm long, in an apparent rosette, coarsely dentate, narrowed at the base into a short petiole. Stem leaves mostly entire, small, sagittate. Fruit a pendulous one-seeded sillicle, 6 mm or less long, slightly longer than broad, plano-convex, with a flat, nearly-circular wing with conspicuous radiating veins or perforations (Gilkey and Dennis, 1967; Douglas et al., 2002). Photo by Nhu Nguyen.

Hairless to glandular-hairy perennial with leafless flowers stems 5 – 50 cm tall. Oblong lance to spoon-shaped basal leaves tapering gradually to stalk. Bright pink/magenta flowers in an umbel of 3-25 atop stem. Individual flowers have five swept back petals united at the base in a yellowish collar with purplish ring and yellow stamen tube. Pale roots are without bulblets (in contrast to D. hendersonii which has bulblets present amongst roots). Seed capsules are brown when mature, cylindrical to egg-shaped, one chamber containing many seeds (Pojar and MacKinnon, 1994). Photo by Dave Polster.

Low-growing (10-25 cm tall) perennial from slender, branched, creeping rhizomes. Smooth, heart-shaped leaves up to 10 cm long, usually two per stem. Cylindrical shaped terminal clusters of small, white, delicately perfumed flowers stand above the leaves. Fruit is small, round, pale green /mottled berry which turns dark red (Pojar and MacKinnon, 1994). Photo by Dave Polster.

Perennial 10-50 cm tall, growing from an oval or tapered bulb which smells strongly of onion. Basal, grass-like leaves stay green during flowering. Many pink, bell-shaped flowers form an umbrella shaped cluster which “nods” at the end of a leafless stem curved at the top. 3-lobed fruit capsules contain black seeds (Pojar and MacKinnon, 1994).

Perennial herb with creeping rhizome. Stems are branched, prostrate, to 30 cm long, tips turning up. Leaves are compound, three-foliate; leaflets to 3 cm long, pointed at tip and finely toothed. Flowers are red to purple, often tipped with white, pea-like, to 1.2 cm long, in dense heads of 2-60 flowers to 3 cm across. Pods with 1-4 seeds (Pojar and MacKinnon, 1994). Photo by Toni Corelli.