White-rayed pentachaeta facts for kids
Quick facts for kids White-rayed pentachaeta |
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|---|---|
| Conservation status | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Genus: |
Pentachaeta
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| Species: |
bellidiflora
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| Synonyms | |
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Chaetopappa bellidiflora (Greene) Keck |
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Pentachaeta bellidiflora, also known as the white-rayed pentachaeta or whiteray pygmydaisy, is a small wildflower found in California. It belongs to the Pentachaeta group within the Asteraceae family, which includes daisies and sunflowers. This special plant is currently listed as an endangered species by both state and federal governments.
This wildflower grows only in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. It lives in places that are less than 620 meters (about 2,034 feet) high. You can usually find P. bellidiflora in rocky, grassy areas. By 1999, its numbers were going down, and the places where it lived were becoming much smaller and broken up. The name bellidiflora means its flowers look a lot like common daisies (Bellis).
Contents
What Does White-Rayed Pentachaeta Look Like?
Pentachaeta bellidiflora is a tiny plant that grows for only one year. It has a thin main root called a taproot. Even though it looks smooth, it has very fine hairs.
Stems and Leaves
Its stems can be 6 to 17 centimeters (about 2 to 7 inches) long. They might have a few hairs and usually grow straight up. Sometimes they branch out near the bottom. These stems are often green or reddish and are generally flexible.
The leaves of the white-rayed pentachaeta are narrow and green. They have tiny hairs along their edges, like a fringe. Each leaf is less than 4.5 centimeters (about 1.8 inches) long and only one millimeter wide. Both the top and bottom surfaces of the leaves are smooth.
Flowers and Seeds
Each plant usually has four or five round flower heads at the very top. The flower stalks are thin. The cup-like structures that hold the flowers, called involucres, are bell-shaped and 3 to 7 millimeters long. They can be smooth or have short hairs.
Like other plants in its group, P. bellidiflora has green phyllaries (small leaf-like parts under the flower head) arranged in two or three rows. The yellow petals are five-lobed. Each flower head has 16 to 38 small disk-shaped flowers, and each of these has pointed style tips. The undersides of the flowers might have a slight red tint.
The seeds are 1.5 to 3.0 millimeters wide and are often flat and oblong. They are usually covered with small hairs. The plant has fragile, hair-like structures called pappuses with five or fewer thin bristles.
When Does It Bloom?
This plant blooms from late March until late June. It is a diploid species, meaning it gets one set of chromosomes from each parent, with 2n=18 chromosomes.
Where Does White-Rayed Pentachaeta Live?
The white-rayed pentachaeta grows in special grassy areas with serpentine soil. It also lives in valley and foothill grasslands.
Today, it is only found in serpentine bunchgrass communities and native prairies in two small parts of San Mateo County. These include areas in Edgewood County Park and on San Francisco Water District lands near Crystal Springs Reservoir.
This plant used to be found in more places, from Marin to Santa Cruz counties. Now, some studies say only one main group of these plants remains.
Why Is This Plant Endangered?
When the United States government declared this plant endangered, they found that its total population was very small and spread out. This made it easy for the plant to face extinction from random events.
Sadly, many things have caused the number of these plants to drop. These include:
- New buildings and city growth
- Use of off-road vehicles
- Work done by highway maintenance crews
These actions have greatly reduced where this plant can live and how well it can survive.
Efforts to Help the Plant
The size of the plant's population changes each year. It depends on how much rainfall there is and how much it has to compete with invasive plants.
In 1997, experts from the California Department of Fish and Game held a workshop to discuss how to help P. bellidiflora. They talked about the need to protect and manage the existing plant groups. They also discussed ways to reintroduce the plant to suitable protected areas.
Plans to manage and help this species recover were put into a document called the United States Federal Recovery Plan for Serpentine Soil Species of the San Francisco Bay Area. This plan was finished in 1998.
