Day 234: In case you missed the update I added to yesterday's post, my observation of Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa var. poroides documented a new species of slime mold for Mount Rainier National Park, bringing the list total to 54. For being in voluntary isolation, I'm having a surprisingly good year, botanically speaking. As my readers are aware, I live for the joy of discovery, but sometimes...well, sometimes I locate species I'd rather not have found, case in point: Galium odoratum, a non-native Bedstraw.
A casual observer might not have given this species of Cleavers a second look, but something didn't seem right to me when I focused on it a couple of years back. There were too many leaflets on the stem, 8-10 in most cases, with 11 on some. That ruled out G. aparine which normally bears 8. I checked my references, double-checked, and then sent a photo off to the collections manager of the Burke Herbarium for expert confirmation. He verified my ID, and asked me where I'd found it since it was a non-native species and somewhat invasive (although not listed as such with the state). I was a little ashamed to tell him the location, but confessed in the name of science, "In my back yard." Native or non-native, Bedstraw is not one of my favourite plants. It grabs ankles when you're walking through it, leaves your socks covered in "Velcro" burrs when it's in seed, and it seems to be a magnet for ticks in a wide variety of environments from dry SW Washington prairie to damp forest edges. Short of using herbicide or spending all the rest of my life pulling it, I have no idea how to get rid of it.
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