Erythranthe arenicola
Phytoneuron 2012-39: 43. 2012.
Annuals, fibrous-rooted or slender-taprooted, rarely rooting at nodes. Stems erect, rarely prostrate to prostrate-ascending, few-branched, 3–17 cm, moderately villous-glandular, hairs gland-tipped, or mixed hirtellous and stipitate-glandular. Leaves basal and cauline; petiole: basal 2–8 mm or mid and distals absent; blade palmately 3–5-veined, suborbicular to broadly ovate or depressed-ovate, 5–17 × 6–15 mm, base truncate or truncate-cuneate to subcordate, margins subentire or crenulate, apex rounded to obtuse, surfaces moderately villous-glandular, hairs gland-tipped, or mixed hirtellous and stipitate-glandular. Flowers herkogamous, 1–6, at distal nodes, chasmogamous. Fruiting pedicels 9–17 mm, moderately villous-glandular, hairs gland-tipped, or mixed hirtellous and stipitate-glandular. Fruiting calyces nodding, ovoid-campanulate, inflated, sagittally compressed, 9–16 mm, moderately villous-glandular, hairs gland-tipped, or mixed hirtellous and stipitate-glandular, throat closing. Corollas yellow, red-dotted, bilaterally symmetric, bilabiate; tube-throat funnelform, 11–20 mm, exserted 4–8 mm beyond calyx margin; limb expanded 10–18 mm. Styles hirtellous. Anthers included, glabrous. Capsules included, 5–12 mm.
Phenology: Flowering Apr–Aug.
Habitat: Sandy beaches, especially in moist hollows among dunes, sea cliff bases, chaparral near beaches, mudstone outcrops.
Elevation: 0–100 m.
Discussion
F. W. Pennell (1947, 1951) considered Erythranthe arenicola an endemic of Monterey County, but plants from adjacent San Luis Obispo and Santa Cruz counties also belong here. Most of the localities are at seaside, but some are more than a mile inland. Erythranthe arenicola is hypothesized here to be a derivative of E. guttata or E. grandis, retaining the herkogamous breeding system of its putative ancestor but reduced in size and duration.
Selected References
None.