notes Growing on gravellly serpentine slope above a road bank. Clarkia flowers are protandrous: the anthers mature, dehisce, and begin shedding pollen before the stigma matures, opens, and becomes receptive. Of the 41 species of Clarkia occurring in California, just two have 4 stamens...the remaining 39 species have 8 stamens that dehisce 4 at a time (first the inner four opposite the petals, then the outer four opposite the sepals). But C. breweri, and the closely related C. concinna, have just 4 stamens and their anthers dishisce simultaneously.
This photo illustrates flowers all the stages of phenological development for C. breweri.
The three pendent flowers at center include an unopened bud and two in the process of opening...with one showing the 4 sepal lobes from which the flower has emerged (and which remain connate at the tip and dangle to the side as the flower develops).
The flower at upper left has anthers at mid-dehiscence, covered with pollen clumps (held together by the distinctive viscen threads occurring in Onagraceae and a few other angiosperm families).
The other two flowers have stamens that have fully-dehisced and shed their pollen, and their stigmas are in the receptive stage.
And peeking up from the bottom of the image (left-of-center) is the tip of a developing fruit :-)
