Diario de aaronddhh

Of all of the Phacelia species within section Ramosissimae (a monophyletic group most easily defined by its highly dissected to pinnate leaves), personally I had the most trouble distinguishing P. vallis-mortae from P. cicutaria var. hispida and P. distans. Luckily, P. c. hispida does not overlap in range with P. vallis-mortae, so that precludes any potential misidentification- although after studying their characteristics well, I've learned the differences between the two. Unfortunately for P. vallis-mortae and P. distans, their ranges do overlap, and that has caused misidentifications to commonly occur, even on more controlled and less open-access databases such as calphotos, and even in herbarium specimens. To make matters worse, the Jepson treatments for these two are pretty vague, and are written inconsistently enough that direct comparisons between the descriptions of each species are unnecessarily challenging. As a result, I've created a draft of a small key for just the two species that allows traits to easily be directly compared to each other. Though I don't currently have the time, resources, connections, (or degree 😭) to officially publish any papers to a reputable journal such as Madroño, I've tested this key myself and think it holds up to scrutiny (At least within all of CA and NV and excluding var. heliophila). Anyone is more than welcome to test this key for themselves and see if it is replicable in the field or against observations on this site.

1. Leaf lobes/pinnae concave, individual lobe margins usually entire to slightly dentate; calyx lobes linear to narrowly lanceolate, recurved, usually glandular; corolla violet/purple/magenta, sometimes white or cream at the base of the tube; filaments congested - P. vallis-mortae var. vallis-mortae

1' Leaf lobes/pinnae flat to convex, individual lobe margins crenate; calyx lobes narrowly lanceolate to lanceolate, rarely recurved, densely hairy to sparsely glandular; corolla lavender/indigo/blue, sometimes white at the base of the tube; filaments occasionally somewhat congested, usually spreading - P. distans

After carefully going through all of the annual Phacelias of the Sierra Nevada, I figured it would be nice to have a key available since it seems that almost no one has thoroughly gone through all of the observations and sorted out what's what. I did my best to try to make it as clear as possible and cover all exceptions. If you have any feedback, please let me know—this is likely a work in progress. I hope you find this useful!

Here is an (almost) all inclusive dichotomous key for Phacelia subsect. Humiles in the Sierra Nevada and surrounding regions. I tried to add it directly to this journal post, but it wouldn't format it correctly and you couldn't see any of the fun colors I added :(

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BAHJxgUL_v7AoDN2EMWSv2_o7upI1JHMkS4vig36En8/edit
(Feel free to comment any suggestions)