Favoritos de emmarose016

Some Western Columbine (Aquilegia formosa), photogaphed along the Canyon Trail at Stevens Creek County Park in western Santa Clara County, CA. Note that there are four photographs in the set of pictures documenting this specimen:

Shot 1: A closeup of one of the plant's flowers.

Shot 2: A closeup of one of the plant's unopened flower buds.

Shot 3: A closeup of one of the plant's leaves.

Shot 4: A closeup of a leaflet on one of the plant's leaves (upper surface).

Shot 5: A closeup of a leaflet on one of the plant's leaves (lower surface).

Shot 6: A broader view of the entire plan, in situ at Stevens Creek County Park.

Columbine flowers are distinctive, so it would be hard to confuse columbines with other plants. There are only four different species of columbine in the state of California - A. pubescens (which only occurs in the Sierras), A. shockleyi (which only occurs in California's southern deserts), A. eximia (which occurs in the San Francisco Bay Area), and A. formosa. A. eximia is restricted to serpentine seeps, and its flowers have a perianth that consists only of upwardly projecting spurs and sepals, with no blades at all. The flower in Shot 1 may have upwardly projecting spurs, but its sepals project outwards (so they are more or less perpendicular to the spurs), and it also has short, downwardly projecting , yellow blades at the base of the spurs. This means that the plant in my photographs cannot be A. eximia. By process of elimination, it is clear that it is A. formosa.

Note: This species is also known as Crimson Columbine.

References:

1) Justen Whittall, Scott A. Hodges & Dieter H. Wilken 2012, Aquilegia formosa, in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora, /eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=13668, accessed on July 08, 2020.
2) Justen Whittall, Scott A. Hodges & Dieter H. Wilken 2012, Aquilegia, in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora, /eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=10124, accessed on July 08, 2020.
3) Key to Aquilegia (n.d.), Jepson's eFlora. Retrieved on 7/8/20 from https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_keys.php?key=10124
4) Aquilegia formosa (n.d.), Calflora. Retrieved on 7/8/20 from https://www.calflora.org/cgi-bin/species_query.cgi?where-calrecnum=430
5) Aquilegia formosa (n.d.), Wikipedia. Retrieved on 7/8/20 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquilegia_formosa
6) U.S. Forest Service (n.d.), Aquilegia Express: The Columbine Flower. Retrieved on 7/8/20 from the U.S. Forest Service web site at https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/beauty/columbines/flower.shtml. Note: the range map for A. formosa in this article is outdated, but otherwise, it still contains good information.

I netted this bee and put it in a vile for closer inspection and immediately noticed yellow hairs on S3 and S4. I decided to collect to make sure I could confidently ID this one. Never seen one before but this seems to fit the description? It appeared to be a darker yellow than the presumable B. vosnesenskii it was resting beside in the rain. @beespeaker @bobmcd @sydcannins

Collection Specimen
Conical caps
Dry, smooth
Bright Yellow and orange, darker at disk
Bright yellow stipes
Yellow gills, attached
Cortina present
Bruises brown
Growing cespitose in troops
On wood debri

Fruiting from roots of nearby Maple stump.
Flesh: neon yellow/green.
Cap: orange, dry.
Gills: purple from spore drop.
Taste: very bitter.
Harvested 4 specimens.
Spore printed a single cap on glass slide and mounted obtained spore print in KOH.
Spore print: purple brown.
Spores: thin walled, ellipsoid, smooth with germ pore.
Spores light yellow in KOH.
Dehydrated all 4 specimens and bagged for herbarium collection/genetic record.
My coinciding Mushroomobserver observation below-

https://mushroomobserver.org/507506?q=1nsRj