Mountain Plants of the Western Cascades

Archive for the ‘Forest’ Category

Clackamas iris (Iris tenuis)

Yesterday (July 29), my husband Jim and I were invited to join Ed Alverson of the Nature Conservancy on a trip north to Table Rock Wilderness to meet up with Daniel Mosquin of the UBC Botanical Garden. I’ve been wanting to get Jim up to see Table Rock’s huge cliff for years, and I couldn’t pass up the chance to head up there with trained botanists, especially if I didn’t have to do the driving. Neither Ed nor Daniel had ever been to Table Rock either. Daniel, whom some of you may recognize from Botany Photo of the Day, was on a mission to photograph the rare Enemion hallii that grows there. He was down in Oregon on other business just for the weekend, so we were crossing our fingers that we could find it in bloom.

Last year (see Rock-hopping at Table Rock Wilderness), it was blooming beautifully on July 22. We were a week later on an even later-blooming year, and I’d seen it blooming well earlier in July on a drier year, so I had high hopes. I started to get a little nervous as we walked along the old road that now serves as the beginning of the trail. The Penstemon serrulatus that was blooming so profusely last year was just beginning. Are we still several weeks later than last year, already a late year? One bonus was that we found the last blooms of another, even rarer plant, Clackamas iris (Iris tenuis), which was completely finished on last year’s trip. This Oregon endemic is found almost entirely in Clackamas County. It reminded me a lot of some Iris japonica I have in my garden, with its wide leaves and spreading habit. It turns out it is the only western American species in the crested iris group (section Lophiris), which includes most of the prettiest irises in my garden including I. gracilipes, I. lacustris, I. cristata, as well as I. japonica. The rest are Asian or eastern North American, so Clackamas iris is a real anomaly.

Read the rest of this entry »

Both the view and the flowers at the summit were outstanding. Mt. Hood can be seen in the distance on the right.

I had planned to go on an overnight camping trip, so I could do two hikes up north, but between an iffy weather forecast and lack of energy, I decided to wimp out—sort of. Instead, I did one long day hike to Browder Ridge on July 26. At over 8 miles and 2000′ of elevation gain, it is one of the longest hikes I’m willing to do. I just don’t have enough time to stop and take photos and study plants at the kind of pace I have to do to get home at a reasonable hour. My husband, Jim, decided to join me, and we made a long day of it. We were warned by another hiker that the bugs were bad, but we never got bitten, and the weather was pleasantly cool. Read the rest of this entry »

The parking area is worth spending some time enjoying the flowers and the great view of the Three Sisters.

A checkerspot nectaring on bastard toadflax (Comandra umbellata)

Friday (July 22), I went to Carpenter Mountain for the first time in 5 years. It’s a long drive on gravel roads, but the trail is short, and I was really in the mood to just relax and take photos. I arrived to find the road near the parking area lined with flowers. I probably spent an hour just wandering about chasing butterflies, photographing flowers, and enjoying the terrific view. That’s really my kind of a day. There were lots of Castilleja hispida, Calochortus subalpinus, Penstemon cardwellii, Fragaria virginiana, and tons of perfectly blooming sticky cinquefoil (now Drymocallis glandulosa). I noticed some little green flags that appeared to marking some plots. Carpenter is part of the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest, so there is a lot of research going on in the area. I wondered how I would find out what the study subject was here, when, lo and behold, a young woman drove up and started checking her plots. How convenient! It turns out she’s an OSU student studying pollinators—one of my favorite subjects—and one I was sort of studying myself when she drove up. I was trying unsuccessfully to photograph a two-banded checkered skipper frequenting the strawberries—also their caterpillar host species. I find it really interesting how many host species are good nectar species as well. I later got some so-so photos of one drinking from fading Arctostaphylos nevadensis but not from the Fragaria. She was having the same trouble I have been, trying to get some work done with all this unseasonably cold and damp weather. Read the rest of this entry »

Balsamroot (Balsamorhiza deltoidea) lights up the meadow below the lookout.

My van was packed for an overnight camping trip, but I literally didn’t decide where I was going until breakfast. There are so many places I want to go, and so little time every summer, and it can be hard to hit the bloom just when I want it. This year’s deep snowpack has further complicated decision making, something I’m not good at anyway. But I’m so glad I opted to go to Abbott Butte, one of my favorite hikes in the Rogue-Umpqua Divide—or anywhere, for that matter. I got the confirmation from the Forest Service that I could get to the trailhead, but there might be patchy snow. That was just what I wanted because my goal was to see the snowmelt species up there. The late-melting heavy snow actually is a boon in some ways. While there were patches of snow scattered along the trail, parts of the area were quite far along. In a drier year, I might have had to go twice, several weeks apart, to see all the different plants I saw in bloom. Read the rest of this entry »

A riot of colorful annuals brighten up the meadows after a wet spring.

Yesterday (July 2), I went to Tire Mountain with fellow photographers, Greg Lief and Cheryl Hill, for what turned out to be my 30th trip. I just can’t help myself. It is so beautiful especially after a cool, damp spring like this. And indeed, I think it was as stunning as I’ve ever seen it. The continued cool weather has kept the extraordinary masses of rosy plectritis (Plectritis congesta) going at full steam even as the bluefield gilia (Gilia capitata) is coming into bloom. On drier years, the gilia usually takes over as the plectritis is disappearing. The seep monkeyflower, blue-eyed mary (Collinsia grandiflora), and rosy plectritis are washing the meadows in yellow, blue, and especially pink. Plenty of deep blue larkspur (Delphinium menziesii) and bright red paintbrush (Castilleja hispida) add to the colorful display.

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 »

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 »

Could anything be prettier than hundreds of shooting stars (Dodecatheon pulchellum) perched on a rocky seep?

Quite by accident, yesterday’s trip to Cloverpatch with Sabine Dutoit and Doramay Keasbey was on the exact same date as last year’s with John Koenig—May 24 (see Back to the Upper Meadows of Cloverpatch). Once again, it is clear the blooming season is even later than last year. There were many things in bloom, but some plants that were flowering this time last year, including death camas and several clovers, had not yet begun. The balsamroots were coming into bloom on this trip, while they were going over last year on this date (Doramay agrees with me that their unusual fragrance has an enticing hint of chocolate!). In fact, looking back at my photos from May 7 of last year (see The Rocky Meadows of Cloverpatch), it appears to be at almost exactly the same stage, making us 2 weeks later this year—and last year was a slow spring. Having such a good measure of the flowering season should help me figure out when to return to some of the other sites I went to last year to see plants I missed. Read the rest of this entry »

Who can resist photographing such a beautiful clump of fairy slippers (Calypso bulbosa)!

On our last trip to Eagles Rest, 15 days earlier (see Early But Lovely at Eagles Rest), Sabine and I were excited about the multitudes of Fritillaria affinis buds. I didn’t want to miss what looked to be a fabulous bloom, so yesterday (May 20) we headed back up there. The most striking thing we noticed is how little had changed in two weeks. Upon entering the woods, the carpet of trilliums was still there, with only a few showing signs of their petals fading to pale pink. The snow queen was also still blooming well, but there were far fewer violets. There were still oodles of gorgeous fairy slippers there and farther along the trail, and they were still in perfect bloom. They were even more profuse in the woods up near the summit, some of which were only in bud before. Usually they grow scattered about, but we saw two tight clumps each with seven blossoms. After viewing at least a few hundred flowers, we noticed we never saw a single pollinator visiting them. I’ve read several times about how they fool bees into pollinating them without giving a reward of nectar or pollen. But in all the years of admiring and photographing these stunning flowers, I can’t remember ever seeing any bees or other insects show any interest in them. Read the rest of this entry »