It occurred to me not long ago that much like the robin or raven, or the lupine we regularly encounter, we tend to not pay attention to things in nature that are frequent residents or visitors. We cherish instead the rarer species, the elephant’s head flower or the pileated woodpecker. Oh, my, we might say. Guess what I saw today? But the everyday flower or bird or piece of granite or chipmunk, well, they are not that special, right? For we inherently take them for granted. Yet, stumble upon a brilliant blue Steller’s jay feather or a deep orange one from a flicker, and our common neighbors seem not so common.
I began thinking about this idea of usual versus unusual when hiking up a canyon this late summer. Mule ears, blooming in late spring, cover entire hillsides or line a highway or can be seen along a dusty, dirt road. In the Truckee/Tahoe area, they’re everywhere. Big, bright wild sunflowers. Wow! Guess what I saw today?
Wouldn’t you know that mule ears is in fact categorized in the sunflower family, Asteraceae. No surprise there when we see hills and flatlands bursting with the large — up to four inches in diameter — bright yellow flower heads. When in bloom in spring and summer, we are treated to the most brilliant landscapes as they often take over large fields, each plant 2 to 3 feet tall, growing at up to 10,000 feet of altitude. As one can imagine, because the sunflowers are large and full of seeds, they attract birds, rodents, and insects. Other than being widespread in the High Sierra, Wyethia mollis, aka woolly mule ears, can be seen growing in volcanic soil thanks to its deep roots. Another species in California, Wyethia angustifolia, narrow leaf mule ears, grows at a lower elevation, up to 5,500 feet.
PIT STOP:A California crescent butterfly, Phyciodes orseis, also known as the Orseis Crescentspot, stops to feed on the nectar of a wooly mule’s ear. Its habitat includes mountain valleys, meadows, and canyons throughout the western U.S. Photo by Juliana Demarest/Moonshine Ink
Mule ears is aptly named, for the leaf resembles the shape and texture of a mule’s ear, long and fuzzy. In the plant world, this outline is described as lance-shaped: long, wider in the middle, generally pointed at both ends. The plant leaf reaches up to 16 inches in length and is soft to the touch due to thin hairs on the leaf surface.
At this cooler time of year when the flowers have slumped and returned to the earth, the leaves turn brown and crinkly. Even more stunning, at an even later stage, is the lace-like appearance. Once I was so intrigued that I spent an hour taking pictures of the delicate lace designs, holes large and small, on the brown and latté-colored leaves. During this time and a little earlier, when the wind stirs and the leaves rub against one another, it sounds like the clack and clatter, pit and patter, of rain.
While mule ears is a fairly easy plant to identify, there is one other that looks extremely similar, also in the Asteraceae family: arrowleaf balsamroot, Balsamorhiza sagittata. Both mule ears and balsamroot bloom around the same time and can be seen in patches together. Am I the only one who, for decades, thought the two plants one and the same? Luckily, the differences are simple.
Mule ears leaves are dull and fuzzy, arrowleaf balsamroot are shinier. Mule ears grow upright, the leaves of the arrowleaf droop down. The mule ears leaf tapers to a thinner point where it attaches to the stem. The arrowleaf leaf indents where it ends at the stalk, forming an arrow or heart-like shape, plus the leaf curves in on itself. Short course: mule ears is reminiscent of a mule’s ear. Arrowleaf balsamroot is like an arrowhead. I love it when science makes it easier to identify plants, simply by the names chosen.
The yellow flowers are quite similar too, but again, with subtle differences. Balsamroot flowers are usually taller than their leaves, so they stick out above them. Wyethia mollis flowers sit within the leaves. The stems with flowers on the mule ears include leaves; balsamroot flower stems have very few leaves.
Not all is dissimilar, however. A commonality between two look-alikes are the roots. Both plants have a deep tap root and strong laterals, thus they are effective erosion controllers.
I won’t take mule ears nor arrowleaf balsamroot for granted again, nor will I continue to mistake one for the other. When I think about it, fields of bright yellow wild sunflowers — versus cultivated sunflowers — living right here in our backyards and in the backcountry, well, that’s pretty special. I am learning, time and time again, that what I pass by and see often, is complex. The everyday in the natural world amazes me every day.
COMPACT DISCS
Asteraceae, the family of composites, includes sunflowers, goldenrod, asters, and daisies. What looks like one flower disk is actually many, many tiny flowers. Each tiny flower within the disk carries a seed.
