June 16, 2010
Green Forms
These were growing all over the place on the clusterflockstock2 mountain. I originally identified them as skunk cabbage, but found this gymnastic bit of taxonomy at swcoloradowildflowers.com:
There are often arguments over Veratrum tenuipetalum’s common name: Some people call it “Skunk Cabbage”. But it is not related to the Skunk Cabbage of the East. It is even more often called “False Hellebore” because it resembles European Hellebores. But it is not a Hellebore. It is commonly called “Corn Lily” because it is hard to look at without thinking “Corn”. But it is not related to Corn, and some botanists do not even classify it as a Lily. Common names often produce problems.
Whatever it is, I love the unfolding process.
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Common names often produce problems.
Daryl, I’m so glad you took these shots. I’m pretty sure, on our hike, I said no less than three times, “What is that?”
I’m sending the link to this to my boss, Kristopher, who has spent time hiking, in the mountains around Aspen (not so far away from where we were). If anything is sure, he is a Greensman. Surely, he knows its name.
Oh thank you, Rick. I love to know the names of plants. My mother had names for plants that I remember hearing as a child, and it’s always nice to run into people who also call them that–even though the real plant namers wouldn’t know what we were talking about!
The leaves are very hosta-like.
Cece. I thought the very same thing, except for Daryl’s second picture. The pod-like, white, pre-opening leaves. I’ve seen no hosta in that state before. That state is almost okralike.