Prosartes
Mary Sue Ittner (Mon, 20 Jun 2016 18:21:21 PDT)

Hi,

Prosartes is a genus that was formerly known as Disporum in North
America (fairybells). Disporum is retained for species from China and
on the wiki Prosartes page we had written that Prosartes is now
considered to justify generic status based on cellular, chemical and
morphological differences that are not readily visible to the naked eye.
That definitely makes it harder to tell them apart. I remember when I
took a wildflower class that telling the two species apart that are
found in our area, Prosartes hookeri and Prosartes smithii, can be a bit
challenging. Since most of the ones I see locally are coastal (P.
smithii) I've not spent a lot of time trying to figure them out. On a
recent trip we saw some plants flowering in Oregon and northern
California and I decided to add some photos to the wiki. I did a bit of
research to add more information to the wiki page and ended up getting
very confused as descriptions vary widely in different publications.
Even the Flora of North America doesn't quite match Jepson. In Jepson
whether the stamens are included or exserted tells those two species
apart, but in the Flora of North America Prosartes hookeri is described
with the stamens either included or exserted. Whether the leaf margins
are hairy and which direction the hairs point is another identifying
feature, except that sometimes those margins are hairy and sometimes not
for the same species. Looking at photos on the Internet of different
species also isn't very helpful as many of the photos of different
species look alike and the photographers could have understandably
misidentified them. And I discovered another species that is native to
Oregon (P. trachycarpa) that in photos looks like P. hookeri, but has
distinctive berries. The ones we saw were in flower so that didn't help.
I finally decided I was spending too much time on it and added photos as
P. smithii since it was coastal and the stamens were included and as P.
hookeri for the California species since P. trachycarpa isn't found in
California (although the spot we saw the plants was near the border) and
for the other Oregon species since it is listed as found in Washington
Park, Portland, where we saw it. There are a number of other North
American species that we do not have photos of. If any of you have
photos of them and are willing to add them to the wiki, feel free to
send them to me and I will add them for you.

http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…