Desert bearpoppy

(Arctomecon merriamii)

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Description

Arctomecon merriamii is a species of poppy known by several common names, including desert bearpoppy, white bearpoppy, and great bearclaw poppy. It is native to the Mojave Desert of California and Nevada. This is a taprooted perennial herb producing stout, waxy stems 20 to 50 centimeters tall. Hairy pale green leaves with rounded teeth are located around the base of the plant. The inflorescence at the tip of each stem is composed of one white poppy flower with six petals up to 4 centimeters long and green sepals covered in long, white hairs. The fruit is a capsule up to 3.5 centimeters long containing many tiny seeds. Botanist Frederick Vernon Coville was first to identify the plant, and named it after naturalist Clinton Hart Merriam, who accompanied Coville on the Death Valley Expedition, the first of a series of expeditions funded by the US Congress to map the flora (phytogeography) and fauna of the United States. Arctomecon is a genus of the poppy family Papaveraceae commonly called the bear poppies or bear-paw poppies, after the distinctive appearance of the leaves. The three species occur only in the western part of the Mojave Desert of North America, and are all uncommon. The plants consist of one or a cluster of basal rosettes of leaves with a generally light blue or grey appearance. Closer examination shows the leaves to be generally wedge-shaped, with the end of each divided into several teeth, and entirely covered with long hairs 5–15 mm in length. The effect is that of a hairy bear paw, whence both common and scientific name (arktos bear + mecon poppy). The solitary terminal flowers are typical of poppies, with 2-3 sepals and 4-6 petals, either white or yellow, and starting out as nodding bud before become erect. The fruit capsule has 4-6 valves, opens from the top as it dries, releasing a handful of small wrinkled black seeds. Arctomecon habitat is typically the harshest and driest soils of the Mojave, where few other plants survive. They especially seem to favor soils with a high gypsum content.

Taxonomic tree:

Domain:
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order:Ranunculales
Family:Papaveraceae
Genus:Arctomecon
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