Mountain Plants of the Western Cascades

Archive for June, 2011

Kalmiopsis fragrans growing within sight of Bohemia Mountain in Lane County (still with some snow on top!)

I just went on my first overnight camping trip of the year (June 26, 27). While I can do some areas of the North Umpqua in Douglas County on a long day trip, it is tedious spending that much time driving, and there isn’t much time left for exploring when I get there. So, as often as I can stand it, I go on short one or two night trips to get farther afield. Any more than that and I can’t keep track of everything I’ve seen and it takes too much time going through my photos and plant lists when I return. For this trip, I wanted to explore the area near Steamboat and along the Lane and Douglas county borders. There are a number of wonderful plants in Douglas County that have rarely, if ever, been found just north in Lane County. It seems like a worthy challenge to discover some of these on “our” side of the county line.

The chief specialty of this area, and one of the rarest and most revered plants in Oregon, is kalmiopsis, named for its flowers’ resemblance to Kalmia (mountain and bog laurel, for example). Its name is used for the Native Plant Society of Oregon’s yearly journal. There are two species, both found nowhere outside of Oregon. The more famous is Kalmiopsis leachiana, namesake of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness in the Siskiyous. The species found in Douglas County is now known as Kalmiopsis fragrans. Its leaves are indeed aromatic, the undersides being covered with small glands. This stunning, low-growing shrub clings to shaded outcroppings of a specific porous rock that has a distinctive purplish color—like it has had blackberry juice spilled on it. I’ve heard it referred to as tuffaceous rock, but I know zip about geology. The higher sites I know of were in full perfect bloom (for its protection, locations are not posted publicly!). This plant is tantalizingly close to Lane County—only about 7 miles from the border—but has never been discovered outside of eastern Douglas County. Read the rest of this entry »

Cutleaf daisy (Erigeron compositus) is distinctive for its highly dissected leaves.

Since it is such an easy trip for me to go to Eagles Rest near Dexter, I’ve been trying to track the season of bloom from start to finish this year. It was moving very slowly at first, but I figured things were moving along a little faster now, and it was high time to get back up there. So yesterday afternoon (June 24), my husband, Jim, and I made a quick trip up there. Mostly Jim napped while I explored, but he seemed to enjoy the chance to relax. I can’t sit still for very long when there are flowers in bloom. It does finally seem to be peak season up there. The most unusual plant there is cutleaf daisy (Erigeron compositus), and it was in perfect bloom. This plant puzzles me because it is so widely scattered with no apparent pattern in its distribution (click here for OFP Atlas). Each population also differs from the others, at least in their blossoms. I’ve only seen it in three other sites in Oregon: Horse Rock Ridge, Rattlesnake Mountain, and Browder Ridge. On Horse Rock Ridge, the flowers are quite large and showy. Those at Rattlesnake Mountain don’t even have rays and look more like little yellow buttons. At 6600′, Rattlesnake Mountain is far higher than Horse Rock Ridge or Eagles Rest, both near 3000′ elevation. And it grows on both sides of the Cascades. If only plants could talk! Read the rest of this entry »

"Mosaic Rock" seen from farther down the road. Steeple Rock is off to the left farther up the slope.

Back in March, while doing our usual early-season poking around southeastern Lane County (see Spring is Here!), Sabine and I came across a huge rock feature we hadn’t noticed before. At the time, access to it was blocked by snow, even though it tops out at 4000′, so on Monday (June 20), we finally headed back up there to get a close up look. We took the first right off of Coal Creek Road 2133. The sign says the road is called 2133-200, but the maps disagree as to what it is called farther up.

Montia diffusa comes in after fires. It looks somewhat like a small-flowered version of the common candyflower (Claytonia sibirica).

On the way up, we spent some time at Jim’s Oak Patch, an area the Willamette National Forest has been doing restoration work on. Several years ago it was burned, and we found several interesting plants that are adapted to burned habitat. These are always interesting because they tend to come in en masse in the scorched ground, but they eventually disappear as other plants reestablish. They must leave vast amounts of seed in the ground, which can sit and wait for many years until the area reburns. Some of these plants have been considered rare, but it is hard to make a judgement about a plant that is so temporary. One of these plants is Montia diffusa. I don’t remember seeing it before, although I was aware of it, so it was great to see it in bloom and get a chance to photograph it. Another was Geranium bicknellii. According to Bruce Newhouse, this pops up a lot more than the Atlas would indicate. It also likes to establish in ground cleared by fire. There was a lovely sweep of Camassia leichtlinii with Plectritis congesta in wet spots and our perennial native Geranium oreganum in bloom as well. Several patches of Heuchera chlorantha foliage lead me to believe there is more in this part of the county than I previously realized. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday (June 10), my husband, Jim, and I took some friends to Youngs Rock. It’s the kind of trail where you can botanize, hike for exercise, or enjoy the scenery of the awesome rocks. Our friends, David, Bob, Carolyn, and Hank (one of the sweetest dogs you’ll ever meet), had never been there, so it seemed the perfect place for everyone—there were even lots of great ponderosa pine branches for Hank to carry around! It’s a rare treat to have my husband hike with me because he prefers a real hike to my flower-by-flower explorations. We were also very lucky that we had plenty of sun while it was apparently cool and overcast all day at home. The southeastern corner of the county is usually warmer and less foggy than the Valley.

Looking east across the large, rocky and seepy slope just east of Youngs Rock

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From the gravel pit below, the cliffs on east side of Stone Mountain are impressive.

Yesterday (June 8), I returned to Stone Mountain, the little known cliffy peak Sabine and I first visited last fall (see A Visit to Stone Mountain). My main goal was to get to the top and explore the open south-facing side. Stone Mountain is shaped very much like a classic camping tent. From the narrow ridge at the top, it slopes steeply down on both the north and south sides, while the front is mainly vertical cliffs. The rocks are distinctly columnar jointed, creating beautiful patterns. In the gravel pit down below, there are piles of these perfectly faceted boulders. They look like they would be spectacular in a rock garden but, on closer inspection, they crumble down into slippery gravel—something that was even more obvious as I attempted to traverse parts of the south slope on top. Read the rest of this entry »

Sawtooth Rock is on the east (right) end of the largest meadow near the ridge. On this trip, I explored the highest openings on the right side of this photo, taken several years ago from nearby Mt. June.

From Mount June, you can look east across to nearby Sawtooth Rock sitting in a giant sloping meadow. It can be reached from the same trailhead as Mount June, taking a left at the first intersection you come to. You can also see a number of other, much smaller meadows in the area that are not crossed by the trail. These have tantalized me for many years. So Saturday (June 4), I decided to go check some of them out. While it was supposed to be a warm, sunny day (finally!), by the time I belatedly left the house, it was completely overcast. Oh well, still no butterflies, but at least it didn’t rain. Read the rest of this entry »

Looking east across the steep, rocky meadows.

It had been three weeks, plenty enough time we figured for the flowers to be much farther along at the meadows on the south slope of Bear Mountain, so Molly Juillerat and I headed back there last Friday (June 3). Since we had only barely gotten up to the cool rocky areas on our last trip (see Knobcone Pines on Bear Mountain Meadows), we wanted to explore the rest of the area east of Indigo Creek including the area much higher up. To make sure we had enough time this trip, we headed straight to Road 2149 and the end of what’s left of Road 204 rather than checking out all the wonderful spots we pass on the drive along Hills Creek Reservoir and Road 21. Knowing now how to get to the base of the meadow complex, it seemed to take only a few minutes to get out into the open. This time, we headed straight up toward the easternmost side that we hadn’t explored at all last time. Read the rest of this entry »