Petalidium coccineum, I can still remember the first time your giant red flowers pulled our eyes from the highway and onto your gravelly shores. We saw you from quite the distance – all alone – but spectacular. Our first bird-pollinated Petalidium. Our lives will never be the same.

Wild collected, Namibia, Tripp & Dexter #843 (RSA-POM) [and on several other occasions]; Photos by Erin Tripp

The ever impressive Petalidium canescens always turns up in the most inhospitable of environments. I’m surprised it hasn’t reached the top of a tepui yet (well, not really). Here it is germinating in sun-fired roadside clay, in an environment so dry that it hurts to breathe–I am not kidding. This is a species to respect.

Petalidium canescens is emblematic of Damaraland in east-central Namibia. Very nice farmers have welcomed us onto their property to learn more about the natural history of this species.

Salute!

Wild collected, Namibia, Tripp & Dexter #882 (RSA-POM); Photo by Erin Tripp

Don’t be jealous just because evolution didn’t fare so well for you.

Petalidium bracteatum has it ALL figured out. On a bloody hot day while I was cruising along on the right (wrong) side of the 4×4 track, in the Kaokoveld, in a heat-induced stupor, Kyle and Lucinda simultaneously spotted this thing through their awesome Acanth spectacles. It was growing out of vertical cracks in cliffs very near to the Kunene River / Angola border. We have yet to encounter this remarkable species anywhere else. At this site, 100% of its fruits were severely predated by some specialist frugivore (damnit!). Seeing the species in the cellulose absolutely clears up any doubt that we may have ever had about its distinctiveness from Petalidium coccineum. Definitely different, although almost certainly related. Need ‘Next Generation’ sequence data, as it’s clear that Sanger Sequences aren’t going to cut it…

Wild collected, Namibia, Tripp et al. #4054 (RSA-POM); Photo by Erin Tripp

Dear Petalidium bracteatum, canescens, coccineum, crispum, cymbiforme, englerianum, giessii, halimoides, and all of the others,

I have cheated on you. I always said that you were my favorite, but the unexpected happened in May 2014 – I fell in love with someone else. I have tried to do my best to explain why, below, though I do not expect you to ever forgive me….

Petalidium angustitibum has to be among the top three most intriguing species in the genus (right now, it’s my #1). Like so many other species in the genus, it is a restricted-endemic in the truest sense of the phrase. I was fairly convinced we wouldn’t find it. We traveled 80 something kilometers through the sand-filled Kwoarib River… no road to speak of… in attempt to find elusive and mostly historical populations of this species.

We found it. The corolla tubes of this species—the longest of any Petalidium—and the very elongate inflorescences (again, the longest of any Petalidium) make this species one of the most distinctive \within the genus. Other observations: 32% nectar at 13:30. In full flower, but almost entirely absent fruits. Fruits that we did find were almost entirely predated. Iain managed to recover one inflorescence with several viable fruits, so there is hope for continued study of this species in cultivation.

Regarding the low fruit set: I cannot claim to know the real story, but not a single floral visitor was seen throughout the course of the day. Is it possible that such pollinators are no longer with these plants are? And if P. angustitibum is not capable of selfing, well then, that’s the end of the road for this species (as an aside, we are rooting for you!). Whatever the explanation is, one thing is certain: the species is locally dominant in its native environment–indeed, it’s one of only a few species of flowering plants alive in this barren landscape–but it’s native environment includes a very, very small stretch of planet Earth.

After turning to the north, we drove on another 50 km or so, and made camp in a very special valley at the mouth of the Ugab mountains. Again: one of the nicest campsites of my adult life. I have photos to prove it….and lucky you, I’ll even share a snapshot of the beauty (see photo of four of us, above).

Wild collected, Klaassen et al. (awaiting data from Essie [WIND & COLO]); Photos by E. Tripp

Almost certainly undescribed. I tentatively gave it the moniker until otherwise proven wrong. Kyle and I wandered up to the base of the amazing bluffs (proximal to the Epupa landing strip) that we had camped at the night before. Lucinda, following a hardwired routine from her Arizona days, followed the wash some ways out. At whatever point, she encountered this plant (in sterile condition) that neither Kyle nor I saw. Nor have I seen anything like it in the field or in any herbarium… yet.

May 2016 update: GBS / RAD-seq phylogeny of Petalidium finally assembled! THIS thing comes out as sister to the massive clade that contains Petalidium variable, P. ohopohense, P. rossmanianum, and P. welwitschii. Might have been where that ultra-arid radiation, in the driest stretch of the Kaokoveld, all began….

Do not miss these amazing geological formations only 5 miles south of Epupa….Nor the Magellanic Clouds that go with it…

Wild collected, Namibia, Tripp, McDade, & Dexter #4060 (RSA-POM); Photos by Erin Tripp

I do not know what to say about this species. We were calling it Petalidium ‘koppie’ (sp. nov.) for the longest time. But recent anatomical work (spearheaded by PhD student Palm Chumchim, Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden) leads me to think it might not be a Petalidium after all. You will note that we collected it more or less sterile (only with old bracts). I maintain my bewilderment until I see flowering or fruiting material.

I love the first photo – Lucinda looks absolutely as perplexed as I am about this plant. Yet at home and happy in that sweet desert wash… en route to the Baynes Mtns, extreme northern Namibia.

Wild collected, Namibia, Tripp, McDade, & Dexter #4064 (RSA-POM); Photo by Erin Tripp

Mayyyyyyyyyybe a new species. One of several that Kyle, Lucinda, and I found during our January 2013 trip. Very clearly this thing bats for the P. variabile team. But: is she different from the former? Is it perfume from a dress that makes me so digress? There seems to be no other plants in the vicinity with which we think she would mingle.

Wild collected, Namibia, Tripp et al. #4075 (RSA-POM); Photo by Erin Tripp