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Calflora is fortunate to have an extremely knowledgeable Nonprofit Board of Directors. One of our BOD members, Ron Vanderhoff, responded to questions about Clarkia bottae and Clarkia lewisii and how they are presented on Calflora taxon pages.
"Clarkia bottae and C. lewisii are indeed two distinct taxa. They are correctly treated as such in Jepson and thus also in Calflora. Confusion may arise because for a brief period one author considered these two taxa as conspecific (belonging to the same species). This was later debunked and Jepson mentions this with the comment 'misapplied' in the C. lewisii treatment.
However, because of the period when when C. bottae and C. lewisii were considered conspecific, some records, specimens, and references may still be labelled as such. That is why the statement 'also called C. lewisii' is on Calflora's C. bottae taxon page here. The best way to distinguish these two in the field is by the orientation of the pedicel holding the flower bud (not the open flower)."
See photos below and Ron's descriptions.
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