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| Family: Phrymaceae (Lopseed) |
| Flowers — color: pale orange, size: 1", type: 5 petals |
A pair of Bush Monkeyflower blooms grow from upper leaf nodes. One to each leaf, they project horizontally, about one wide at the end and 1.5 inches long, including the green sepals. The fused tubular flower has five lobes considered as two lips. The two lobes of the upper lip point skyward and the lower lip makes a short landing strip for pollinators to reach the nectar in the hanger. The corolla color is pale orange but may fade, and the interior is pale with two orange spots on the lower lip where it bends. The green calyx behind the flower feels somewhat sticky.
The pistil extends just to the bend of the upper lip. It has a bisected disk stigma that folds together when touched by a finger or pollinated. Two stamens with two orange anthers each form a cross just behind the stigma, and two shorter stamens form a cross deeper in the throat of the flower. When a pollinator enters the flower's throat it may trip the stigma shut and then get pollen on its back. With the stigma closed, the insect is less likely to self-pollinate this flower as it retreats. The pollinator goes to the next flower and the pollen on its back may fertilize that flower. This complex scheme will reduce inbreeding.
Habit:
Bush Monkeyflower is a perennial shrub with columnar form. One or more stems grow form the base, become woody with age, and can reach to four feet high and spread half that. A pair of leaves attach in opposition and are one to two inches long and very narrow. They have a smooth top with indented central vein, rougher bottom with raised vein, and edges having some fine teeth. A pair of nascent leaves grows at each leaf-stem junction: branching stems may develop here. I feel the leaves closely resemble black sage, and I have a little trouble distinguishing them on juvenile plants. They also have a faint sage aroma and may exude some resin making them sticky, but I can't feel it. Leaves are evergreen, but can be drought deciduous, browning and withering in summer.
Botanist use both Diplacus and Mimulus to describe monkeyflowers. The standards are shifting, and plants change families. Originally, the distinction was brown, woody versus green, fleshy stems, but now tolerance or damage by extra moisture is considered.
This variety has much paler blooms than bush monkeyflowers in other regions. D. aurantiacus ranges from Gaviota northwards. A former variant, now D. longiflorus, ranges from San Luis Obispo southwards. The Lompoc variety is considered a hybrid of these two types and grows in the overlap of their two regions.
Despite a similar flower shape, Bush Monkeyflower shares little in common with the annual Vandenberg Monkeyflower. Shares areas with black sage, sunny to part shade in the coastal sage scrub and open parts of the chaparral and woodland.