In message , Peter B
writes

I would particularly like a lead on the "Saxifrage".

Looks to me like Moschatel, Adoxa moschatellina, vernacular name "Town
Hall Clock", because of the arrangement of the flowers.

http://www.english-country-garden.co...hall-clock.htm

cheers,
robin

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In article , Robin Somes wrote:
Looks to me like Moschatel, Adoxa moschatellina, vernacular name "Town
Hall Clock"

I doubt it. One of its other vernacular names is Five-faced Bishop, which
gives a clue to the number of flowers on each spike. Peter's specimen has
many flowers.

I don't know what Peter's plant actually is, though. 8-)

Roger

In message , Roger Whitehead
writes
In article , Robin Somes
wrote:
Looks to me like Moschatel, Adoxa moschatellina, vernacular name "Town
Hall Clock"

I doubt it. One of its other vernacular names is Five-faced Bishop,
which gives a clue to the number of flowers on each spike. Peter's
specimen has many flowers.

Looking again at his picture, you're right, of course. For some reason,
possibly the blade of grass coming up vertically, I had assumed that the
uppermost 2 or 3 flowers on the stalk belonged to a separate stalk
behind. Doh! Shows just how much one can see what one's expecting to
see...

cheers,
robin


I don't know what Peter's plant actually is, though. 8-)

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In article , Robin Somes wrote:
Shows just how much one can see what one's expecting to
see...

And how hard it can sometimes be to identify plants from photos. So many
of the normal clues and cues are missing.

Roger

Roger Whitehead wrote:
And how hard it can sometimes be to identify plants from photos. So many
of the normal clues and cues are missing.

Indeed. Also, pictures often show just one or a few flowers (leaves,
stems, ...), and therefore one can never be sure if the thing shown is
typical for the specimen or species at hand (unless the photographer has
taken the trouble to add a note about that or take many pictures). This
is related to Pauls' observation yesterday, with respect to one of
Peter's pictures, that is was a pity that that pictures just showed one
flower in which floral parts could properly be counted.

As anyone who has ever used identification keys surely is aware, it
happens rather frequently to find, e.g., a few tetramerous flowers in
inflorescences that have otherwise tens of pentamerous flowers and stuff
like that. Some documented examples that illustrate such things can be
found below.

Kerria japonica: most flowers pentamerous, but tetramerous flowers can
be found occasionaly as well -
http://www.plantsystematics.org/cgi-...ank=bi nomial

Ptelea trifoliata: in the tree that I had a look at, most flowers were
tetramerous, but quite some pentamerous flowers could be found as well
-
http://www.plantsystematics.org/cgi-...ank= binomial

Paris quadrifolia: plants typically with four leaves, but specimens
with, e.g., five leaves can be found as well -
http://www.plantsystematics.org/cgi-...ank= binomial

Best regards

-- Jan

In message , Jan De Laet
writes

As anyone who has ever used identification keys surely is aware, it
happens rather frequently to find, e.g., a few tetramerous flowers in
inflorescences that have otherwise tens of pentamerous flowers and
stuff
like that. Some documented examples that illustrate such things can be
found below.


I've been taking note of aberrations among mallows. See

http://www.malvaceae.info/Biology/Aberrations.html

I've seen flowers with between 3 and 9 petals. What makes the situation
potentially worse for identification purposes is that the aberrations
are concentrated among the earliest flowers, so there may not be a
normal flower visible to give the game away.

Sidalcea seems to throw up hexamerous flowers more commonly that
tetramerous ones.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley

Yep, this happens all the time. What drives the students nuts is
finding monocot flowers with dicot part numbers and vice versa. We see
this often with Nothoscordum, Hypoxis, Phlox, etc.

M. Reed

As anyone who has ever used identification keys surely is aware, it
happens rather frequently to find, e.g., a few tetramerous flowers in
inflorescences that have otherwise tens of pentamerous flowers and stuff
like that. Some documented examples that illustrate such things can be
found below.


I've been taking note of aberrations among mallows. See

http://www.malvaceae.info/Biology/Aberrations.html

I've seen flowers with between 3 and 9 petals. What makes the situation
potentially worse for identification purposes is that the aberrations
are concentrated among the earliest flowers, so there may not be a
normal flower visible to give the game away.

Sidalcea seems to throw up hexamerous flowers more commonly that
tetramerous ones.