<\/a>Mary F. Willson \/ For the Juneau Empire \n Self-heal flowers have a fringed lower lip and a hood above the stamens and pistil<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
Along the road to the Salmon Creek powerhouse, the hiking group found common harebells and lots of a small, purple-flowered perennial plant called self-heal (Prunella vulgaris). It’s native across the northern hemisphere and introduced everywhere else. There are multiple flowers in each inflorescence. The flower has a fringed lower lip and an upper hood over the stamens and pistil, but in some cases the pistil extends out in front. Flowers with the pistil inside the hood tend to have bigger and fewer flowers, less pollen, less nectar, and lower visitation rates. Although the flowers may self-fertilize if few pollinators are available, they are primarily bee-pollinated. I watched a bumblebee unsystematically visit nearly every flower on one inflorescence, poking its head deeply into some of them to get the nectar and passing quickly over others (perhaps the nectar had already been taken).<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Studies of self-heal in Japan have shown that the size of the flower in different ecological settings varies with average tongue length of the bumblebees in those settings: bigger flowers in areas with long-tongued bees. In other words, there are local adaptations of flower size to the abilities of the available bees. Other factors, such as altitude or robustness of the plant, did not account for the observed correlation. The size-match of tongue length and flower size affects both male (pollen removal) and female reproductive success (pollen receipt and seed set).<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
I’ve noticed a small goldenrod on the East Glacier Trail near the cliff that sports purple mountain saxifrage in spring and offers a lookout toward what’s left of the glacier. Called northern goldenrod (Solidago multiradiata), it tends to favor rather dry areas in meadows, on rocky ridges, or gravel bars. The yellow flower heads occur in more or less flattened clusters. This plant is much shorter than the Canada goldenrod, which likes disturbed areas and bears its many flowers in large, tapered inflorescences. The small flowers of goldenrods are visited by butterflies, bees and many other insects, but which ones are the good pollinators and which are just thieves?<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Near that same cliff, I saw several common harebells (a.k.a. bluebells of Scotland; Campanula rotundifolia). Found in open areas, rocky or grassy, this perennial is seen in many places around Juneau. The flowers are purple-to-blue, borne singly on each branch, but some plants have several branches on their wiry stems and may have several flowers.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t