Dicoria canescens, desert twinbugs
Photo by Kyle Brine at iNat, taken on 13 January 2024. | 
Photo by Don Rideout at iNat, taken on 18 December 2023 |
Photo by Tom Chester, taken on 24 November 2010 | 
Photo by Tom Chester, taken on 24 November 2010 |
| Fig. 1. Top row: opened fruit of Dicoria canescens to show its one to two seeds, aka "bugs", per flower head. Top left: a single "bug". Top right: "twin bugs". Click on the pix to go to the original iNat observation.
Bottom row. Left: An intact fruit along with one that has naturally shed its phyllaries, exposing a seed. Right: The usual appearance of the heads in fruit, hiding all the "bugs" inside. Click on the pix to see larger versions. | |
Table of Contents
Introduction
Photos in different life stages
Introduction
Dicoria canescens, desert twinbugs, is a delight to come across because it is interesting in so many ways!
- It has very unusual-looking seeds that look like bugs hiding inside its phyllaries; see Fig. 1.
- It violates the usual rules of plant growth, that annuals must be either dormant as seeds during the long, hot, dry summer; or be specialized monsoonal annuals that grow quickly and set seed before monsoonal rain is used up. This species usually germinates in winter, and grows throughout the summer before setting seeds in the fall!
This species is only able to perform this magic when living in a very special environment, washes with deep sand that get thoroughly saturated in their upper layer by previous summer and/or winter rains, and/or water flows in the wash. That provides a "reservoir" of water, stored in the sand, that this species can tap throughout the summer.
- It is a chameleon, looking so different in its different life stages that many people have a hard time believing it is the same species; see Fig. 2.
- It hardly looks like the member of the sunflower family that it is, with spherical fruit that hides the seeds.
Photos in different life stages
Fig. 2 shows how this species changes as it grows up and matures.
Photo by R.J. Adams at iNat, taken on 29 March 2022 | 
Photo by Tom Chester, taken on 3 February 2011 |
Photo by Jen Pagel at iNat, taken on 27 March 2020 | 
Photo by Tom Chester, taken on 3 February 2011 |
Photo by Rod Belshee at iNat, taken on 28 April 2019 | 
Photo by Tom Chester, taken on 27 February 2024 |
Photo by Matt Berger at iNat, taken on 22 June 2022 | 
Photo by Steve Matson at iNat, taken on 23 September 2022 |
Photo by Fred Melgert and Carla Hoegen at iNat, taken on 12 December 2022 | 
Photo by Michael Charters, taken on 9 December 2005 |
Photo by Matt Berger at iNat, taken on 15 September 2019 | 
Photo by Tom Chester, taken on 1 December 2005 |
| Fig. 2. Photos of D. canescens plants at various life stages, starting with young plants at the top and plants in seed at the bottom. Note the progression in the months of the year from top to bottom, with very young plants observed in February and March; "teenage" plants observed in February to June; and mature plants in flower and fruit observed in September to December.
Click on the pix to see a larger version or to go to the original iNat observation. | |
More info to be added in the future.