Candyflower
Claytonia sibirica · Wildflowers
Candyflower
Redwoods, Northern California, 24 April 2025
Five white petals veined in pink, five magenta stamens and, at the centre, a white style split three ways - which is what places it. A candyflower, one of the spring beauties, in the purslane family. The three-branched style is the mark of Claytonia; a starflower, the other pink five-petalled thing on this forest floor in April, has a single undivided one.
Candyflower grows in exactly this kind of damp, shaded redwood understory, and is edible, though it tastes of very little. The miners of the Gold Rush ate it against scurvy, and its cousin is still called miner's lettuce.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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